Jeff Bailey works for Google in the Open Source Programs Office. Prior employers includes places like Canonical, Sirius Sattelite Radio, and Hollinger Digital Canada. Jeff is also a member of several Free and Open Source projects, such as GNU, Debian, Ubuntu, and Gnome.

Jeff is originally from Vancouver, but considers Montreal to be “Home”. He is currently studying for his Masters of Science in Computing and Information Systems with the University of Athabasca.

Abstract: Jeff will be talking about the growth and development of Open Source Software in corporations. This will include a bit on what Open Source is, an overview of some licenses, snippets about the growth of Open Source in corporate Canada over the past decade, and information on how Google (his currently employer) uses Open Source Software. He will also cover what it’s like being an Open Source hacker working in these environments, and how to sell OSS to enterprises.

This is the last video we have from CUSEC 2008. This presentation by Dr. Jeremy Cooperstock from McGill University shows how the need for low-latency in games and music can drive innovation.

Abstract: Musical interaction and games have long been ignored by the mainstream of engineering, perhaps considered as unworthy of serious attention. On the contrary, these applications pose serious design challenges and present important opportunties to test core technologies, with implications to a broad range of other activities. Examples of such technologies, motivated by the needs of music and games, include video tracking systems for identifying body pose and position, low-cost accelerometers with efficient gesture recognition algorithms, low-latency network transport protocols, high-fidelity spatilized audio, and advanced video rendering. This talk illustrates the development of some of these core technologies along with their associated research challenges and implications to future applications.

Dr. Jeremy Cooperstock – Music and Games: How Fun Applications Stimulate Core Technologies from CUSEC on Vimeo.

Want to demo your project? Want to get feedback and get people excited about your project? Want to see what your peers are up to in Montreal? Or do you just want to meet other people who are as passionate about building products that make a difference in people’s lives as you are?

DemoCampCUSEC 3 will let you show off your stuff in front of interested developers and software engineering students from across Canada. DemoCampCUSEC 3 is open to the public, so you can come and watch cool demos — and even present one — even if you don’t have a ticket to the rest of the conference.

For more details and instructions on how to sign up, check out the DemoCampCUSEC 3 Wiki Page

It’s time to award the best blog post and best picture from CUSEC 2008.

The best blog post, or shall I say blog coverage goes to Bnerd[TM] (link).
The best photo goes to hyfen (link).

Congratulations to Bnerd[TM] and hyfen. You each get a free ticket to CUSEC 2009!

And remember, you can have a chance to win a free ticket to CUSC 2010 by blogging about CUSEC 2009 or taking photos. If you blog, please send us the link to the post(s) to info [at] cusec [dot] net. For photos, upload them to Flickr and tag them with with ‘cusec’ and ‘cusec2009′.

Leila Boujnane and Paul Bloore are the co-founders of Idée Inc., developers of advanced image identification and visual search software.

At CUSEC 2008, Leila and Paul talk about how to conquer technology challenges, build a team and change an entire industry. They are both software industry veterans and in this presentation they will take you through their current start up adventures. A day in the life of Idée Inc, a technology retrospective (how far have we come), a lesson in building great technologies, large compute clusters and landing some of the largest clients in the world. All without ever stopping to have fun.

Bruce Miner has over thirty years of IT experience, specializing in enterprise grade systems architecture, large scale development, database design, database internals, operating systems internals and management consulting.

Bruce gave a talk at CUSEC 2008 on how the underlying themes of thinking strategically and taking risks are applied to a variety of real life experiences ranging from Internet giants to up and coming environment applications.

CUSEC 2009 has record-breaking registration numbers. Do you know what that means? That’s right: Record-breaking attendance.

Now, you may have been wondering, “Should I go to CUSEC?” I’ll have you know, many people have answered that question “YES!” If you’re the type to follow a crowd, now’s the time to jump on the bandwagon. 

To encourage reckless bandwagon-jumping, we’re extending the early-bird deadline for four more days. If you’ve been sitting on the fence, don’t be discouraged: Tickets are still only $60.

The response to Zed’s keynote at CUSEC 2008 was so huge that many attendees wanted him to do another talk during the conference. Zed caved and was gracious enough to fill in for Slava Pestov and give a tutorial on Factor. Check it out below!

Note: Unfortunately there are no slides, code or video for this talk.

I have a piece of juicy, juicy gossip for you: The CUSEC 2009 Schedule is available.

Tell your friend.

http://2009.cusec.net/schedule/

 

 

Oh, I crack me up. Just kidding of course. I know you have more than one friend. Tell them both.

CUSEC: The Annual—2009

1. CUSEC 2009 Will Be The Best Conference For Software Engineers, Ever
2. Money For You
3. 2009 Speaker Lineup: Like the Power Rangers, Only Better In Every Way, And Less Annoying
4. If Yggdrasil Were Planted In El Dorado AND Atlantis, CUSEC’s Location Would Still Be Better
5. Registration Still Open!
6. Videos From CUSEC 2008
7. Stuff to Bring
8. Twitter

Greetings, Dear Friend Of CUSEC With An Email Address That Is In Our Possession Through Perfectly Legitimate Means. Please, read on for the hip happenings of CUSEC 2009!

CUSEC 2009 Will Be The Best Conference For Software Engineers, Ever

We’re software engineers. We’ve built and optimized a conference for software engineers. We’ve got interesting speakers, a positively superlative venue, and top-notch industry partners. If you’re already signed up, read on for titillating details. If you’re not signed up, there’s still time!

Money For You

Holy Flying Spaghetti, is CUSEC ever cheap! On Jan. 1, conference passes went up to $100, but we screwed it up, so you can still buy conference passes for $60 until Jan 16. Most conferences of this caliber cost TEN to FORTY times as much and this is the only part of this email I’m not exaggerating! If you don’t know what a Head Delegate is, you can register online!

OK, so you SHOULD be paying us at least $999.95 for this conference, and you’re only paying $60, so it’s like we’re giving you money! How is this possible?

Phenomenal industry partners. Like our Platinum Sponsor RIM. RIM supports better software engineering and SE education. Along with our Gold Sponsors IBM and Radialpoint and several other enlightened companies, they have stepped up to make CUSEC possible. Kudos and thanks!

Logos!

They have totally earned the legal right to be mentioned prominently in our newsletters. And we love them for it.

2009 Speaker Lineup: Like the Power Rangers, Only Better In Every Way, And Less Annoying

The Power Rangers: They’re Mighty. They Morph. They’re Multicoloured. Sometimes they band together to make giant robots. I don’t really know, I was never allowed to watch them as a kid. Anyway, our speakers are just like the Power Rangers, except without all the bad parts, like Encouraging Children to Violence or Having Annoying Theme Songs.

Keynote Speakers

1. Leah Culver (Founder, Pownce)
2. Francis Hwang (Writer, artist, software engineer)
3. Avi Bryant (Founder, DabbleDB; Creator, Seaside)
4. Dan Ingalls (Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems; Pioneer, Object-Orientied Programming)
5. Richard Stallman (Founder, GNU Project; Founder, Free Software Foundation)
6. Giles Bowkett (Evil Genius)

Academic Speakers

1. Jonathan Edwards (MIT)
2. Jörg Kienzle (McGill)
3. Steve Easterbrook (University of Toronto)
4. Caitlin Kelleher (Washington University in St. Louis)

Corporate Speakers

1. Jói Sigurðsson (Google)
2. Joey deVilla (Microsoft)
3. Vince Silvestri (Evertz Microsystems)
4. Surprise!

Tutorials

1. Colin Smillie (Refresh Partners)
2. Mark Pavlidis (McMaster)
3. James Golick (GiraffeSoft)

If Yggdrasil Were Planted In El Dorado AND Atlantis, CUSEC’s Location Would Still Be Better

CUSEC 2009 will be held at the luxurious Omni Mont-Royal Hotel. Out of town delegates will stay at the wonderful Best Western Ville-Marie, directly across the street. It couldn’t be easier!

Registration Still Open!

A wise man once said,

Holy Flying Spaghetti, is CUSEC ever cheap! On Jan. 1, conference passes went up to $100, but we screwed it up, so you can still buy conference passes for $60 until Jan 16. Most conferences of this caliber cost TEN to FORTY times as much and this is the only part of this email I’m not exaggerating! If you don’t know what a Head Delegate is, you can register online!

And he was mostly right. Except, there are no other conferences of this caliber. That’s what “best” means, and CUSEC 2009 is the best conference for software engineers ever. Also, those expensive conferences would kill to be as much fun as CUSEC, and they’ve tried, how they’ve tried, but they’re not even close.

Never been to a conference before? No worry! CUSEC is a perfect first conference due to our relaxed yet energized intellectual atmosphere!

Revolutionary!

Videos From CUSEC 2008

Check out the CUSEC 2009 site. The blog includes videos from Zed Shaw, Jeffrey Ullman, Jon Udell and more.

Stuff to Bring

Bring

• Copies of your résumé for the career fair (Does YOUR email handle Unicode?) (Bring your resume!)
• Comfortable clothes for the conference
• Stylish clothes for Montreal-style evening activities
• Clothes for leisure and recreation. The hotel has a gym!
• Laptops for hacking and demos
• Cash money for food, snacks and tasty beverages.

Do Not Bring

• Black hole-generating particle accelerators. Ending the world is forbidden at CUSEC.

Twitter

CUSEC loves Twitter: Check out #cusec2009 when the conference rolls around!

Fin

Still have questions? Check out the FAQ.

On that note, this newsletter is finally OVER! Whoosh!