Developers Workshop 2006

The OS/2 and eComStation Developers Workshop 2006 will take place the weekend of 8. and 9. April 2006 in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.

News Items
23. February 2006   Added registration information & first overview of the topics 21. January 2006   Added hotels and some information about Biel/Bienne. 2. January 2006    Initial website online.

Registration
The registration is open at Mensys now, we provide the following tickets:


 * netlabs.org Developers Workshop 2006, Saturday and Sunday: 45 Euro
 * netlabs.org Developers Workshop 2006, one day: 25 Euro
 * netlabs.org Developers Workshop 2006, students: Free

You can register at http://www.mensys.net/DeveloperWorkshop2006/

Workshop Program
There is no program yet but one of the main topics we will talk about is Voyager, beside this we will for sure talk about current projects, like Genmac, ACPI, Everblue and so on. There will be quite some time for discussions, in a workshop form, also known as sitting around computers and hacking some code :)

We will provide enough space, wired or wireless network connection and a lot of bandwith.

Schedule
So far we plan to do the following presentations (details follow):


 * Cairo
 * General overview of Cairo, its structure and its API.
 * Showing the Cairo API in live through a lot of examples.
 * IOProc replacement
 * Introduction to a new modular playback engine concept.
 * Showing what's ready, what's to be done, what are the ideas.
 * Discussing future possibilities (recording, transcoding...).
 * The Voyager Object Model (was SOMH): The desktop will be built on an object model similar to SOM. The presentation details the reasons for an own object model and how it's implemented.
 * Tour of the OS/2 desktop
 * Why not using C++, Objective C, ...
 * Implementation details
 * Compatibility with SOM/DSOM
 * Desktop development roadmap
 * Using the object model for more
 * Everblue
 * Voyager - A coder overview about the project
 * OpenGL as backend for Voyager - current options and problems
 * Voyager components - where can you contribute
 * OS/2 & PM compatibility - some crazy ideas worth discussing
 * A WM based on Cairo
 * Coding for WPS and Voyager
 * netlabs.org Certificaton Program
 * Translating Software

Workshop Location
Beside famous watch companies like Rolex, Omega and Swatch the city of Biel in Switzerland is the home of one more cool company: netlabs.org! This means that the Developers Workshop 2006 will take place in the city where netlabs.org was founded in 1997. I'm proud to do the hosting at the Berne University of Applied Sciences, the place where I did my studies and where I work now as a system administrator and teacher.

Biel is a small but cute city close to Bern, the capitol city. It's the boarder to the french speaking part of Switzerland so people in Biel speak german and french, at least most of them :-) If you have some more spare time I recommend you to do a walk in the beautiful surroundings of Biel, for example the Jura mountains or around the lake. There is plenty to discover and with a bit of luck we will have a nice spring time in april.

Links:
 * Drei-Seen-Land - a nice page with a lot of information about our region.
 * Biel/Bienne at Wikipedia.org. Available in many languages.
 * Old town of Biel - some pics from the old town in my gallery

Hope to see you there!

Adrian Gschwend founder of netlabs.org

Getting to Biel/Bienne
Biel is the gate to the french speaking part of Switzerland, located in the western part of Switzerland. It is well connected to the railway system in Switzerland and easy to reach from about everywhere.

By train: There are night trains to Basel, called CityNightLine, this is mainly interesting if you want to get to Biel from Germany, Holland or Austria (it works from Denmark as well some days). You reach Biel within one hour from Basel by train.

For other train connections consult your local train office, if you have to travel to Biel from an airport check the homepage of SBB, the railway company in Switzerland. For Geneva and Zurich you have to add Airport in the search field. For Basel and Bern Belp you need to take the local airport bus anyway.

By plane: There is no large airport close to Biel but in Switzerland almost everything is close anyway. So you can choose one of those airports if you want to get to Biel:


 * Zurich (ZRH) - The biggest airport in Switzerland, quite good connections to Biel (every 30 minutes). Takes about 1.5 hours by train.
 * Geneva (GVA) - good for Easyjet. There is just one train per hour to Biel, around 1.5 hours by train.
 * Basel (BSL) - also good for Easyjet. There are bus connections to Basel and from there it's one hour by train.
 * Berne Belp (BRN) - this is a small local airport, close to Bern but you still need to get to Biel and that's probably not much faster than Zurich because the Bus connections from this airport to Bern are not that great. From Bern it will take 30 minutes to Biel.

The local airline in Switzerland is Swiss, which offers quite good trips from bigger cities.

Accomodation
There are several classes of hotels available in Biel:


 * Lago Lodge - nice backpacker hostel directly at the lake of Biel. University is quite easy to reach by bus and the walk is not that far either.
 * Hotel Continental - 3-star hotel close to the lake as well. The road is quite busy so make sure you get a room towards the lake.
 * Hotel Metropol - 3-star hotel, 15-20 minutes walk to the University or bus.
 * Villa Lindenegg - a very special and cute hotel in an old villa, 2 minutes away from the University, you can't get closer than that :)
 * Mercure Plaza - 4-star hotel in the middle of the city
 * Hotel Elite - 4-star hotel close to the railway station. Takes less than 10 minutes to the University.

If you can't afford a hotel we offer a room at the University where you can sleep with your sleeping bag and your mattress. The room is in the old manufacturing of Rolex and there are showers available too. It's probably not really comfortable but you don't have to pay anything for that :-) Please contact Adrian Gschwend if you want to do that, we have to know how many people do it like this. Email: ktk [at] netlabs.org Update: I made some pictures about the location: http://ktk.netlabs.org/gallery/HTIBiel

Gallery
There are some pictures online, check http://ktk.netlabs.org/gallery/HTIBiel

Contact
If you have comments or want further information about the workshop, you can always reach us by sending an eMail to: DevelopersWorkshop [at] netlabs.org Adrian Gschwend is mainly responsible for organizing the workshop.

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