In just under a month, the tenth O'Reilly Open Source Convention will get underway in Portland.

Over ten years OSCON has developed—along with the world of open source—into an intense, exciting, informative, diverse and exhausting event. This year I've the privilege of being co-chair, along with Alison Randall. We've packed so much into the show, it's a difficult job even being able to comprehend it as a whole!

Fortunately, there's a way to start making sense of things before you arrive there, thanks to the personal scheduler. Just mark the sessions you want to go to with a star, and you'll be able to plan out your time in advance.

I wanted to list a few sessions from my own personal schedule that particularly piqued my interest. Then at the bottom of this post I'll share a discount code which can give readers of this blog 15% off OSCON registration. There's bribery for you.

Practical Erlang Programming

Largely thanks to XMPP enthusiasts and ejabberd, I've been hearing increasing amounts about Erlang, and I'd like to know enough about it to be dangerous. This three hour tutorial looks just the ticket.

Open Source Virtualization Hacks

This is one of several sessions we have on virtualization, something I'm particularly pleased about. Virtualization may be "done" at the kernel level, but I think we're only just starting out on its application. This session is by my friend and sometime co-author, Niel Bornstein, who works for Novell on just this sort of thing.

Using Puppet: Real World Configuration Management

Puppet is the piece of open source software that is most exciting to me at the moment. As a developer, it enables me to manage my machines like I'd manage my code libraries. A must-see if you've not used Puppet yet.

These are just 3 out of the 300 or so confirmed sessions. Don't forget there's a large number of events and parties happening around OSCON too.

And finally, the discount code. Use the code os08pgm when you're registering, and you'll get 15% off the ticket price.

See you in Portland!

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