The Whole Widget

Recently two Edinburgh conferences of interest to me have opened for registration.

The Highland Fling

The Highland Fling is an annual one-day conference aimed at web developers and businesses with an interest in web standards and accessibility.

Now in its second year, this years event takes place on Thursday 3rd April at the Symposium Hall, part of the Royal College of Surgeons, and focuses on the topic of "The Browser & Beyond". Here's a summary from the Highland Fling website outlining what will be discussed:

In the world or modern web development we can no longer consider the browser as the end point of our product which is our content. More and more devices and applications are being released that can access our information and more importantly do not even require a browser to do so.

For The Highland Fling 2008 we're bringing into focus how the landscape is changing. API's, desktop apps, ambient devices, mobile and much more are helping us break out of the browser and potentially reaching an entire new audience as a result.

How do we embrace this, how do we take our existing skill set and transpose it into new mediums? How do we expand our skill set? What is our skill set going to be? Where is it all going?

The sessions look quite interesting and I'm particularly looking forward to hearing what Aral Balkan has to say as I saw him at d.Construct in 2006 and was exposed to Flex for the first time.

Scotland on Rails

Coming hot on the heels of The Highland Fling is the inaugural Scottish conference on Ruby on Rails — Scotland On Rails.

This is the first UK-centric Ruby on Rails conference and is a two day event on Friday 4rd and Saturday 5th April. When you consider that this is a regional conference the organisers have pulled off quite a coup with the quality of talent that they have assembled to present.

This will be my first conference I have attended that concentrates more on the back end of developing web applications and I'm looking forward to learning some exciting new things and meeting some interesting people.

If you're attending either of these events don't feel shy about saying hello.

I'm currently travelling down to London on the train to attend @media 2007, so thought I'd take a moment to take advantage of GNER's wireless internet access and outline what I'm planning to see.

The whole lineup looks great but because most of the event is run on two seperate tracks I'm forced to make a choice about whick speakers I would like to hear.

Thursday morning kicks off with Beyond Ajax, the keynote by Jesse James Garrett.Next up is the choice of Molly E. Holzschlag or Jason Santa Maria. I'd really love to hear both of these speakers and I'm torn as to who to go and see.On one hand I've heard many of Molly's previous presentations via podcast of various web conferences over the last couple of years and am unsure if there will be much that I haven't heard already. On the other I'm aware that she is giving up the conference circuit and so this might be my last chance to hear here at a live event.I'm trying to make a conscious effort to learn more about the areas that I am weakest as a web developer and so hearing Jason talk about design is a prime opportunity to learn from one of the most respected designers in the industry about a topic that isn't my strongest field.I think this might have to come down to going to whichever room I can get a seat in as I expect both rooms to be rammed.Next up I think I'm going to attend Drew McLellan and Simon Collison's presentation on Design vs. Implementation. I've heard both of these speakers before and I think it should be a light hearted affair but still outlining the tough choices that need to be made everyday when designing sites with web standards while still maintaining a design flair.After lunch I'm hoping to catch Dan Cederholm's presentation on http://www.vivabit.com/atmedia2007/europe/sessions/#interface. Dan is the founder of SimpleBits, co-founded the wine community site Cork’d and is a designer I've admired for some time. Like Jason earlier I'm hoping to pick up some top design and process tips so that I can improve my skills in this area.After Dan I'm confronted with a tough choice once again as Mark Boulton and Tantek Çelik go head to head. I think I'm leaning towards going to Mark's presentation as, like Molly earlier, I've heard Tantek talk about Microformats via podcast a number of times whilst typography is an area in which I am becoming increasingly interested in and could do with learning a bit more about.Day one ends with Joe Clark talking about When Web Accessibility Is Not Your Problem. I'm really looking forward to hearing Joe Speak as I've been a regular subscriber to his blog for years and love the way he is passionate about everything he does and the forthright manner in which he expresses his views.Well, that's day one's agenda sorted and I think I'll take a break here for now. I'll post later on what I'm looking forward to for day 2.

Tomorrow marks the inaugural Highland Fling conference in my home town of Edinburgh. The Highland Fling is billing itself as

… an annual one-day conference in Scotland aimed at web developers and businesses with an interest in web standards and accessibility.

and since this checks all the right boxes for me I thought I should really show my face.The theme of the conference is Progressive Enhancement and the list of sessions and speakers looks very impressive. I've seen – or heard – most of these speakers before at d.Construct 2006 and podcasts of various Web Conferences through iTunes so can vouch for the quality of the line-up.As far as I'm aware tickets are still available, so if you think this is of interest to you go register now.

This Friday I'll be attending the d.Construct 2006 Conference in Brighton. d.Construct is best explained by the following quote from this year's website:

d.Construct is an affordable, one-day conference aimed at those building the latest generation of web-based applications. The event discusses how new technology is transforming the web from a document delivery system into an application platform.

All the sessions look really interesting but I'm particularly looking forward to Derek Featherstone's session on ‘Accessible Web Applications in a Post Web 1.0 World’ and Thomas Vander Wal's session on ‘Understanding Folksonomy (Tagging that Works)’ as these two sessions are most likely to influence how I go about my day to day work.I noticed on the Backnetwork that I've had my profile pimped by fellow Scot, Gavin Montague. Thanks for the plug Gavin I owe you a pint and obviously, being a true Scot, it will be from the free bar at the after-party. Talking of socialising I'll hopefully be attending the pre-conference get together at Heist if I have time so hope to bump into some of those attending there.