CUSEC 2006 in Montreal this past January featured a great line up of speakers including Chad Fowler, Kathy Sierra and David Heinemeier Hansson.

Except snow storms in the midwest kept David from making it, so with 12 hours of advanced notice, Rails Recipes author Chad Fowler flexed his jazz improv background by whipping up an entertaining, wise and cool-as-cucumber talk in place of David’s keynote. The result is Rails is Boring and Ruby is a Toy.

Thanks to SOENlive for making the talk available. You can get the rest of the conference by subscribing to the SOENlive podcast on iTunes.

Today someone on the Rails mailing list asked, innocently enough, “Is there by any chance some document available summarizing all the
(major) beautiful new stuff in Rails 1.1?” As is to be expected, he received instructions on how to do a diff between the 1.0 release tag and trunk as well as links to the CHANGELOGS. He used “summarize” carefully. Turns out there was nothing like he was looking for. Well, not for long…

Scott Raymond, of Blinksale and IconBuffet fame, rolled up his sleeves and did the dirty work for the rest of us. So, as requested, here is a summary of what will be new in Rails 1.1. Thanks Scott.

Campfire by 37signals has launched. It’s web-based group chat for business where file transfers work reliably and where you have shared access to the logs.

It’s also dripping with delicious Ajax, courtesy of Prototype maestro Sam Stephenson, who joined 37signals in December along with Marcel Molina. So go check it out. More details about the launch on Loud Thinking and 37signals.

Due to the overwhelming success of selling 400 seats in just a week, RailsConf has been able to extend the venue and open up an additional 150 seats. So if you missed out during the first round of registrations, now would be a very good time to expedite that intention to be there and sign up. Hope to see you in Chicago in June!

UPDATE: Away they went! The additional 150 seats have been sold in a little less than 24 hours and we’re thus full. We’re going to have one hell of a time with 550 Railers in the room. Awesome!

MySQL developer Lenz Grimmer has a quick chat with David for the MySQL developer zone.

Also, uk.BUILDER.com has a long and insightful interview. David explains how 1.0 should have really been 2.0, what the continuum of database evil entails, why Rails is useful for the enterprise and the joys of aesthetic moments with Ruby. It’s a laundry list of David’s ideology, all in one place. A window into the culture and personality driving Rails.

Choice excerpts:

• I am not a vendor. I don’t work on Rails to please other people, I work on it to please me. That’s the beauty of open source. I’m free to make technology choices unrestricted by legacy or ill-advised customers. If you don’t “buy” Rails, it’s no skin off my back. There are plenty of people who do buy it because they share the priorities presented.

• So if labelling me “crazy” helps you ignore the disruptions Rails is bringing to the table, I say go for it. Maybe that’s an accurate label for me in the current situation you’re in. And if there’s no interest or ability to get out of that situation, it’s probably best to write me and Rails off as crazy such that you can head into work with a smile tomorrow.

• Once a high-level component becomes big enough to be interesting, it’ll take more work to configure it than it would take to build just what you needed from scratch.

Should be required reading for anyone interested in Rails.

In the next few months, our friends over in Europe will be getting several opportunities to attend Rails training courses.

• Geoffrey Grosenbach, the man behind the Rails podcast as well as libraries such as Gruph Graphs, will be doing a 1 day engagement in London on March 30th through Carson Workshops. If you’d like to get a quick headstart on diving into Rails this workshop is for you. You can register your seat for £395. Register

For those looking for longer, more intensive training, April brings two options.

• Chad Fowler, author of the new Rails Recipes book, will be offering a comprehensive Rails course April 10th-14th in London through Skills Matter. Chad has deep knowledge and experience with Ruby as well as Rails. His workshop provides particular attention to how Rails uses the strengths of Ruby to its great advantage. Seats are going for £1,500. Register

• Rails core member Marcel Molina Jr. (me) will also be offering an intensive 5 day Rails retreat in Frankfurt, Germany at the Kloster Eberbach Monestary, April 10th-14th. Marcel’s class in December sold out almost immediately and his upcoming class in March is sold out as well. Only 17 seats available for this one so get in while you can for €2,800. Register

How long before Dave Thomas and Mike Clark bring their Pragmatic studio over to Europe?

Rails training is spreading.

Long time resident mentor on ruby-talk and Ruby Central co-founder, David Black, is just finishing up a book that should be of special interest to those whose first Ruby experiences are coming by way of Rails: Ruby for Rails – Ruby techniques for Rails developers.

The book will be available in stores at the beginning of May. Meanwhile you can get chapters one at a time, as they’re completed, through the Manning Early Access Program.

Check it out.

Last year’s O’Reilly Open Source Convention was a watershed event for Ruby outside of Japan. Ruby was the well-deserved buzz of the conference.

This year’s call for participation is closing late Sunday night. If you’ve got something to teach, head on over and drop your Ruby and/or Rails proposal into the hat.

We warned you it was going to happen, and lo, in less than a week, RailsConf has SOLD OUT.

All told, 400 people signed up. In October, RubyConf was capped at 200 and sold out as well. The year before that, we had about 70 people. Ruby and Rails are “so hot right now”.

A technical glitch has rendered railsconf.org inaccessible. Use railsconf.com in the meanwhile.