Due to many requests we are extending the talk submission deadline for Plone Conference 2010 in Bristol, UK until the 5th September. So don't delay, get you talk submission in by the end of this week. Once the deadline is reached, the talks will be put up for public vote as we only have around 50 speaking slots (which have almost been filled already!).

One of the fantastic things about Plone is the wide ranging community that covers developers, designers, integrators, users, and many more. To this end, we always like to see talk submissions from people who might not yet feel a core part of the Plone community. Plone is used in a wide variety of places, and case studies of how it is used in organisations and how Plone has helped changed your organisation are very valuable.

If you are stuck for ideas on things to talk about, Steve McMahon wrote a great blog post recently on some ideas for talks.

So to submit your talk, head over to the talk submission page and fill in your details. Accepted speakers will be eligible for a reduced conference fee of just £150 (+VAT).

See you all in Bristol!

The Plone 4.0 Framework Team and release manager Eric Steele are pleased to announce the first release candidate for Plone 4.0.

Plone 4.0 brings massive performance and scalability improvements, a brand new default theme and a revamped user interface.

Other new features include:

• An improved first-run experience, particularly creating a new Plone site
  
• Streamlined user account creation and extensible member profiles
• Upgraded infrastructure: Plone now runs on Python 2.6 and Zope 2.12 making for easier deployment and a smaller memory footprint
  
• Built-in file-system storage for Image and File content types makes databases with large binaries easier to manage
  
• Pop-up forms for login and many management functions
  
• TinyMCE visual editor improves formatted text editing
  
• Full-text indexing of East Asian languages
• Group dashboards
• The new standard theme utilizes a flexible, grid-based layout that provides a better base for clean, modern theming
  
• Hundreds of bug fixes and tweaks
• A well-tested upgrader that makes upgrading from Plone 3 fast and easy
• Performance increases that nearly double pages per second in typical situations.

How you can help

Release candidates serve as proposed final releases for the project.  While Plone 4.0 has been tested by many members of the Plone developer community, and is already running in production on a number of sites, it needs wider testing to flush out any remaining critical bugs before we can stamp it as a "final release."  And that's where we need you.

Here's what you can do to help:

1. Test our installer packages by downloading and installing Plone 4.0 RC1 from the Plone 4.0 downloads page.
2. Help us test the upgrade scripts by migrating a copy of your site's data.
3. Report any errors to the Plone bug tracker.

This meeting  will feature a special preview of  Plone 4, and networking opportunities for businesses & individuals working in or wanting to join the Plone community.

Everyone is welcome.  This is not a sales pitch, just a chance to learn and be involved. Help us build a group that meets your needs and promotes Plone in our area.

More information, visit:
http://groups.google.com/group/plonecho

It's that time again: There's a new release of Plone heading your way, so it's time to upgrade the plone.org web site to the latest version!

We expect the upgrade to be smooth, due in no small part to the amazing efforts of the Plone Framework Team, release manager, and core developers in bringing you this impressive release. Plone 4 is the easiest major upgrade of Plone so far, and the amount of changes needed to plone.org to accommodate the upgrade were minimal.

So, please bear with us this coming weekend, as we upgrade plone.org to the latest release of Plone. The work will start at 00:00 EDT on July 31st and may last all weekend. Only intermittent downtime should be expected, if any at all.

— The plone.org Infrastructure Team.

The Plone Sauna Sprint 2010 is about to start. We still have some places left for Plonistas to join us for a crazy hacking week in Helsinki!

Time flies when you are having fun! The early bird registration for Plone Conference 2010 ends on the 31st July... that is just 10 days away from now.

So act now, and buy your ticket at the reduced rate of £230+VAT. From the 1st of August the rate will go up to the regular rate of £320+VAT.

The Plone Conference will be held in Bristol, UK, and expects to attract over 400 developers and users of Plone from over 30 different countries. There will also be training before the event, and sprints after.

If you are planning on submitting a talk, we'd urge you to buy your ticket now at the earlybird rate, and then if you submit a talk that is accepted we'll refund you the difference for the speaker rate.

We have a number of speakers already pledged to give talks, and we will be putting out the call for proposals very soon.

To register, go to the Plone Conference 2010 website