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The fourth edition of Florida DrupalCamp is rapidly approaching - Drupalists from Florida and beyond will be descending on Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida on February 11 and 12, 2012 for the largest Drupal event Florida has ever seen. Registration is currently open at fldrupalcamp.org at the low cost of $20 per person - the cost will be going to up $25 on January 11, so be sure to register soon to get the lowest possible price. Admission will include a t-shirt, drinks, snacks, and lunch and access to the entire session program. Session proposals are still being accepted as well - the deadline for submitting a session is January 12, so if you're interested in sharing some of your Drupal knowledge, be sure to submit your proposal soon.

Over the past few months since DrupalCon Chicago, I've spent some time working with other members (bhosmer, greggles, coltrane, christefano, lisarex, marguerite) of the community in reorganizing and rewriting the first version of the Drupal Camp Organizing Guide. Along with a new title (signifying the inclusion of other types of events such as sprints, summits, and hackfests), the guide is greatly enhanced with a lot of new information.

I was very proud to participate in the official DrupalCon Pre-Conference Training again this year. I decided to repeat my Intro to Drupal Theming class, especially since drupal 7 was such new territory. Our class size was limited to 20 students, which sold out in advance of the conference.

While we're fresh off the heels of Florida DrupalCamp 2011, it's a good time to take a look back and see how we did as well as try to figure out how to make next year's camp even better. Using results from our post-camp survey as well as feedback from my fellow organizers, here's a closer look at some specifics.

A few weeks ago I was invited to speak to a technology committee of a large organization that was considering standardizing their various web sites on Drupal. They requested a presentation and then some Q&A time - unfortunately, I didn't have any slides ready to go, so I had to scramble a bit. I decided to spend a couple of days (and evenings) creating a generic slidedeck that I could use for other potential clients as well as share with the rest of the Drupal community.

As the planning for Florida DrupalCamp 2011 winds down (the event takes place February 12-13, 2011), I thought it would be a good time to share the incredible success we've had with forming partnerships and finding sponsors to (hopefully) pull off an amazing Drupal event.

Tickets for Florida DrupalCamp 2011, February 12-13 at Rollins College in Winter Park, are now available at the official site: FLDrupalCamp.org. This year's event promises to the be the largest Drupal event Florida has ever seen with more of what’s been growing crowds for the past few years - now at a bigger, more comfortable venue. Tickets are just $10 and include a t-shirt, and plenty of food and drinks.

The Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership Center at Rollins College's Crummer Graduate School of Business is having Ryan Price from DrupalEasy as a guest speaker at their Winter Park Campus. Here are details about the event. Leaders Series: Free Software Tools for Nonprofits Effective technology is absolutely essential to efficient and successful nonprofits. Technology, software, and IT support are integral to back office functions and engaging clients, donors, volunteers and the community. Take advantage of technology that can reduce your operating cost and increase engagement and outreach with clients and donors. Take advantage of and learn tips about: Google and Google Docs Facebook, Twitter, YouTube RSS Feeds, Podcast Feeds, Blogs Drupal Content Management Popular Open Source Projects Date: Friday, January 14, 2011

Packt Publishing keeps churning out Drupal-related books - by my count they've published nine this year alone! One of their latest efforts is Drupal 7 by David Mercer. It's a basic "intro to Drupal" book based on Drupal 7 geared towards readers new to the platform. There are a number of topics in the book that are a bit unique, starting with a nice discussion about the GPL and the rules governing its basic usage. It's not something that is seen very often in Drupal books, and it a great introduction to open-source licensing. There is also a short section on Open ID that provides the basics without trying to go into too much detail.

The Right Service at the Right Time, the latest DrupalEasy launch, harnesses the function of several contributed and a few custom modules to create a one-stop online shop that connects struggling Orange County, Florida residents directly to the government and social services they need. The Orlando-based Orange County Library System (OCLS) which contracted with DrupalEasy to develop the site, is going all out to promote the program, and is getting great feedback already. With the launch of The Right Service at the Right Time, people across Central Florida can take advantage of the full range of resources available to them, all from their home computers or those provided in libraries throughout the county. Before the new site, those without Internet access would have to travel from one government office to the next to access assistance from the various agencies.

It's pretty rare for me to read a Drupal book that I can't recommend to anyone. So rare, in fact, that this will be the first time I've done so while reviewing books for DrupalEasy. Before I go into details, I want to be clear about something: writing a technical book isn't easy. While I haven't written one myself (unless my Master's thesis counts), I have written my share of technical articles and I'm never surprised at how much longer it takes me than I originally imagined. This is mainly due to the difficulty to make my thoughts clear to a large group of people. Combine that with a topic as difficult as the Panels module and you've got quite a task ahead of you. While the idea behind panels is easy to grok, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Earl Miles ( merlinofchaos on drupal.org, and one of the very few to score "11" on CertifiedToRock.com), the creator of panels, has stuffed every conceivable option and an unbelieveable amount of flexibility into the Panels suite of modules. As with many things in the Drupal community, this makes for something very powerful, but also something very time-consuming to fully understand and use - both in theory and practice.