[Texas] Wakey-wakey Texas Python Community

[Brad Allen]

It seems as if many of the messages I post to the Texas Python mailing
list drop into a void, whereas messages to individual user group
mailing lists seem to connect and get responses.  I'm not sure why
it's such a quiet list, since the Texas Python mailing list membership
has 126 subscribers.

Is this quietude due to an excess of politeness? More likely everyone
is busy working due to the high demand for Python programming these
days. Or perhaps even...Texas Python programmers have a life?

Still, I hope community participation can be seen as a valuable part
of that life, and worth a bit of spare time here and there, even if
it's just to pay attention. It should be getting more interesting and
productive for you to participate, with all the new infrastructure
we've raised up (the project tracker, the new Django-based website,
the updated wiki content, the blog, IRC, the GitHub organization, etc.
See the freshly housecleaned http://wiki.pytexas.org for the most
current set of links & info).

In any case, the community does seem to really exist because 192
people (!) have registered for the PyTexas 2011 conference next
weekend, which I'm convinced will be a blast for everyone. Here are
some brief updates:

* The TAMU College of Architecture has offered to pay for Sat & Sun
catering of breakfast, afternoon snacks, and coffee!
* Snoball.com is hosting a party in on Saturday evening with free beer
and food.! (details forthcoming)
* In case you missed it: there's a new Django-based PyTexas website:
www.pytexas.org. See
http://blog.pytexas.org/2011/08/new-pytexas-website.html
* A Blender + Python tutorial is in the works to be added to the
schedule, at the request of folks at TAMU who say Blender has a lot of
local interest.
* A talk on virtualenv + pip + virtualenv wrapper is planned to be
added to the schedule
* Unfortunately the "Python Glues Everything" presentation had to be canceled.
* We have nearly finished a deal with RackSpace to provide one year of
cloud server hosting for the Texas Python community, to the tune of
$250/month of server resources. I've already paid for the first month
just to get the servers available to host our websites. After the year
is nearly up, we'll review options, and likely use sponsor money to
pursue further.
* Watch for a Schedule Survey tomorrow, to help us do some last minute
tweaks to the schedule. I need to know if we have enough lightning
talks to cover sessions on both Sat & Sun! Also I'd like to gather
info on the PyTexas Teach-In participation. This survey should have
gone out earlier...but I procrastinated. Tomorrow it will really get
done.
* General info on How to Volunteer has been posted at the bottom of
http://wiki.pytexas.org
* If you're one of the volunteers planning to help on Friday, stay
tuned for details. We will definitely need your help!

Finally, I'd like to mention that I'm looking for the best way to
email attendees directly. That is how most PyTexas registrants
indicated they wanted. I've learned that blasting out lots of emails
to individuals via bcc seems to cause my gmail account to get closed
for violation of terms of service. Looking for suggestions...