A few dozen Ubercart users and developers flew into Denver, CO on Friday for Ubercamp 2.0 at Drupalcamp Colorado. Despite the various delayed flights and missed connections, a nice dinner and a bit of rest Friday night prepared us to show up at the camp eager to learn, share, and enjoy the geek-speak.

Seven Ubercamp sessions made it into the final schedule for the camp. For my part, on Saturday I was able to present the Uber-Update. I covered the current state of Ubercart (sooo close to 2.0!), plans for Ubercart 3.x, and the goodies I have in the works (like the checkout form builder and UberDrupal). Today, Lyle and I presented the Discount Framework, a solution for uber-flexible discounts using Ubercart's Conditional Actions and Price Handler systems. Someone was kind enough to post a recording of this session if you're interested.

Will Vincent (tcindie) is here to present his hotel booking module. Top Notch Themes and the team behind the U.S. Air Force Academy Association store shared with us some simple pointers for doubling conversions and sales with Ubercart (in one case, simply migrating to it!). Last but not least, Tim from Commerce Guys also presented two sessions on Ubercart's integration with Google Analytics and Views.

Beyond the sessions, I've had an awesome time hooking up with a lot of folks from the forums, many of whom I'm finally meeting for the first time. It's been a treat to meet many new (and regular) users and provide some fun on-the-fly consulting. Commerce Guys also flew in a couple of major Ubercart contributors, Erik Peterson (torgosPizza) and Tim Rohaly (TR) as a way of saying thanks for their efforts. We hadn't seen Tim at any events yet, so getting to hang out with him and give him due credit for his contributions has been a treat.

There's still more fun to be had in sessions, at the Ubercart dinner this evening, and in the code sprint tomorrow. I'll be sure to report on the success of the sprint, as we're eager to nail down the remaining issues for Ubercart 2.x. Feel free to pitch in wherever you are!

It's now pushing 3 AM, so I guess that means Day 1 of our training in Chicago has officially been over for a little while. No matter, I'm just winding down and figured I'd report on how things are going! The folks in attendance are all awesome and bring a lot to the table in terms of experience and personality. It's a treat to have each of them here, and I look forward to the next two days of training.

Basically, our time together hasn't been without its hiccups (our server slowed to a crawl when we instructed everyone to visit the modules page at the same time... oops ), but for the most part it was a good day of introductions, hopefully very fruitful for the newcomers to Drupal and Ubercart, and a fun way to meet more experienced Drupallers looking to bone up their Ubercart knowledge.

Today we managed to cover most of the basics, from an installation through setting up a store catalog with images, product classes, attributes, and the core catalog module. I covered the sessions related to the Catalog and Attributes systems and hope to distill that information into some articles before I forget everything I said.

The day has also been quite tasty. I had a hearty salad at Whole Foods for lunch (Dear wife, I even voluntarily put raisins on it!) with 5 other guys from the training. For dinner we met up with some Palantiri at Hub 51 where I got an awesomely fat and juicy burger with fries. I got to rub shoulders with Larry Garfield and refine my understanding of things like handlers, OOP in Drupal, and models of time travel in Star Trek. After that it was back to the hotel to relax and get work done porting the UC Store Credit module and UC Free Order to Drupal 6 for use on Ubercart 2.x. Give 'em a shot!

Now the day is way past the close for me, so I'll hit the sack and do it all again tomorrow.

Been a while since I've had a chance to post... a nasty flu bug (sadly, not the swine flu) had me down for the count for a couple of weeks, and I'm just now catching up on the backlog of work and "things-to-do." However, my general lack of productivity couldn't stop plans to schedule Ubercamp 2.0 from coming together.

Several of us chatted at the code sprint in DC about where our next Uber-event would be, but I had no idea a wonderful opportunity would fall into my lap. The organizers of Drupalcamp Colorado approached me about hosting an Ubercamp at their venue over the weekend of June 27-28. At first I was bummed, because I saw that I had plans for that week... then I realized a day later after sharing the bad news that I was looking at May on my calendar, and magically my schedule conflict cleared up!

So, Ubercamp 2.0 is a go for a joint venture with Drupalcamp Colorado. We'll be bringing as many Ubercart users and developers together under one roof there in Denver as possible. Ubercart sessions will focus on configuration walkthroughs and practical module demonstrations in the same vein as my Advanced Ubercart Usage session from Drupalcon DC. With a little more time, though, it won't be quite so rushed. They'll be up for voting ASAP, and hopefully others from the community (hint hint) will be proposing their own sessions once the site is open for proposals.

Basically... I can't wait! Check out this thread for a little more info and to sound off if you can make it. The price will be dirt cheap, the community will be great, and I'm sure there's some good food to be had. If not, I vote the next Ubercamp happens in Ethiopia or India. Mmmm...

Lastly, if you can't handle waiting that long to see me, there are still a couple of seats left at my Ubercart training in Chicago scheduled for May 27-29.

Oh, and Christina and I found out we're having a girl! Name pending, but it's looking like it'll be Tolkien inspired.

So, Lyle and I were in need of a good morale boost last night to spur us ever onward in our quest to catch up with the Drupal community. My wife was out of town, so we hunkered down for a few hours at Chick-fil-a and hacked away on the final issues related to an Ubercart 2.0 release candidate until the restaurant closed. We returned home and finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist (incredible anime) while waiting on an eleventh hour patch from sammys. The patch received, we proceeded to refine, test, and test again the latest changes since the last beta until we felt confident to package up a release candidate some time after 3:30 AM.

The release notes show the most recent changes, primarily the addition of a core price handler to centralize development related to price altering discount, fee, and tax related features. Here's hoping the year was worth the wait and the new system is leveraged by the awesome developer community to put up some solid contributions! These last few months alone have seen 30+ new patch contributors to Ubercart core, so I know you all have some muscle to flex.

We're expecting a final 2.0 release to follow soon and can't wait to get back to working on core and rewriting some of our first Drupal modules ever. Enjoy. I know we will.

And yes, I slept like a baby last night.

Well, I had an awesome time at Drupalcon as always, but not surprisingly I was swamped upon my return and failed to post anything more on my trip to DC than a quick wrap-up post for my company. I wish I'd been able to post more while it was still fresh, but c'est la vie.

I was shocked to find out upon my return that a man I knew was murdered behind my house while I was away. Small memories of him and my own imagination are still haunting me, and I feel like I live and work in two entirely different worlds... but I digress. Let's be thankful for every day we're given.

Anyways, I did have a great time with everyone at Drupalcon. I met a ton of new people and was able to greet again the many familiar faces in the community. It was super cool to meet several regulars from Ubercart.org and share stories and ideas over our second Ethiopian Uberdinner (that was off the chain!) and several other ethnically diverse dinners. A highlight for me was getting to welcome my uncle to the conference as the first person from my family (beyond my wife) to experience the Drupal scene first hand!

In my Ubercart on Drupal 6 session, we aired a fun video endorsement of Ubercart by Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame that included a sweet discount from RiffTrax (his Ubercart powered store) for all the attendees. I also managed to pull off a perfect technical demo in Advanced Ubercart Usage... no unexpected bugs and some encouraging feedback made it one of my favorite sessions to present so far. Afterward, I hit up several great Ubercart related BoF sessions, including one that spawned a clear initiative to get better donations support in Ubercart. If you missed the sessions, the videos are available at the links above for your viewing pleasure, or you're welcome to join me in Chicago for an Ubercart training event at the end of May.

Finally, the conference afforded me several opportunities to brainstorm with various people about the possibilities for e-commerce on the semantic web. I highlighted the topic briefly in my Ubercart on D6 session, and I hope to pick that discussion up more in the near future. Given the direction of Drupal and the emphasis from the top down, Ubercart is in a great spot as a Drupal module package to really explore how stores can benefit from the semantic web. Cross-site promotions? Affiliate sales? Aggregated product reviews? Drop shipping? I'm sure there are many great applications of the technology waiting to be developed, and it's my goal for Ubercart to drive that innovation.

In the meantime, we'll keep doing what we can to make Ubercart simpler to install and use, and by golly, we'll have a solid 2.0 release even if it means sacrificing more sleep and that whole exercise thing. Sorry, though, I'm still gonna catch a little Star Trek with my wife.

I was alerted earlier today by one of my colleagues at Commerce Guys about a certain article I might be interested in reading. Intrigued, I followed his link and was excited to find a blog post by Jack Wallen in TechRepublic's Product Spotlight covering Ubercart.

The review is quite simple and presents Ubercart in a good light, stating that "Ubercart is incredibly flexible, reliable, and suitable for small- to large-businesses." Obviously, this wouldn't be true if it weren't for the strengths of Drupal and the efforts of the entire Drupal community. The review does fairly point out that documentation is a weak point, especially for the 2.x branch. Another gentle reminder that some things just have to get done.

The bottom line? "If you are looking for an e-commerce solution, and you can deploy Drupal, Ubercart is your tool." Thanks, Jack. We'll get that documentation written, and we trust that Drupal will keep getting easier and easier to deploy.

I recently described myself as a person who is slow and hesitant to make changes. The setting was an open mic feedback time during a members' meeting at church, and the topic was the new timing and nature of our services on Sunday mornings. My feedback was quite positive, but as I sat down I realized that I'm either incredibly wrong about the kind of person I am or have been acting extremely out of character lately!

My life couldn't possibly handle any more changes right now (so I say). I recently went back to school to pursue a Masters of Divinity at SBTS in Louisville, KY. As a "going back to school gift," my wife surprised me with the news that she was six weeks pregnant (now 11 weeks!). I was dense enough to think she was just hinting at wanting to have children at first, but pulling out a onesie with a hand painted "My daddy goes to Southern." on it tipped me off. I still requested a "second opinion", and the weekend test confirmed it... I am indeed going to be a dad come September. Woohoo!

So, grad student, first time father... not very compatible roles to play if you cherish sleep at all. But I couldn't stop there. I also finally decided to leave behind my job of 3.5 years and join Commerce Guys, a young Drupal company specializing in e-commerce sites using, you guessed it, Ubercart. Perfect fit? You bet!

The original Commerce Guys, Mike O'Connor and Tim Hill, have been using Ubercart since the alpha releases of a couple years ago. I hooked up with Mike at Drupalcon Boston and roomed with him during Drupalcon Szeged. Mike and Tim also made it down for last summer's Ubercamp, and we all had a rockin' good time. When the offer came in for a position as a Commerce Guy, it didn't take much deliberation on my part.

I had wanted to move toward full time Drupal work within a web development company for some time. I received some good counsel from Robert Douglass during and following Do It With Drupal and ended up doing a card sorting exercise he recommended with my wife. The goal was to figure out what I was looking for in a job, and I decided that in the short term I wanted opportunities for growth and increased pay, more flexibility (i.e. work remotely), the opportunity to continue working on Ubercart if possible, and continued chances to travel with my wife (and soon family). Don't think you can find exactly what you want doing Drupal full time? Think again.

My family and friends were very supportive and excited about my decision to move, but I was honestly blown away by the unexpected support from the Drupal community. There was a good show of support in the news post on Ubercart.org, some personal cheers via chat, and a host of tweets from Drupallers on Twitter (including one I might frame ). A big thanks to everyone for their support. I'm excited about the move and have been enjoying working from bed and my favorite coffee shop already!

It's unseasonably warm here in Louisville, which is very nice since my front yard has been a solid sheet of ice for a week and a half. It made getting down the steps and to the car quite a treacherous exercise! After church, I sat down and thoroughly enjoyed another chapter in The Preexistent Son by Simon Gathercole, a book that looks at evidence in the Bible books Matthew, Mark, and Luke indicating the authors understood Jesus to have an existence prior to his incarnation. I've actually really enjoyed the book, even if I didn't know it was such a hotly debated issue!

Anyways, afterward Christina and I headed out to the park for a walk. Today was the first "warm" day in a while, so I finally got a chance to sport the short-sleeved Mega Stega t-shirt from one of the more recent Ubercart stores, Muffin Castle. I nabbed the shirt in a site launch promotion they did over Twitter and couldn't be happier. Christina would like me to point out that it might be troublesome that the only strangers to comment on liking my shirt were teenage girls in the park (and one college-aged neighbor across the street). No worries. I'll be sporting this neon wonder at Drupalcon DC regardless!

Thanks again for the shirt.

(Along with the Mega Stega shots, I'm also including pictures of the reason I was without power for 4.5 days... You have to view the full post to check out the images.)

Ahh, a blog post about Drupal Mail. But wait, I thought that API just got an overhaul in D6... does it really need to be revisited? No, I guess I can leave the API alone, but I can't help but gush about some of the awesome stuff I've received in the mail lately.

I was delighted to finally get my own shiny copy of Using Drupal from O'Reilly as a thank you for vetting the Ubercart content. Honestly, I should really be thanking Lullabot for the time they spent developing a solid walkthrough that details setting up an Ubercart store. I'm impressed by how much clearer a few screenshots can make things, and I love the fact that the quick tips they provide (look for the paw prints) cover a lot of crucial support requests that pop up in our forums daily. If you haven't grabbed a copy, this is again a highly recommended read!

I was just as delighted to receive my first ever garden gnome from Garden Gnome World, one of the latest fully operational Ubercart sites. I opted for the jet-pack wearing sniper gnome, Colonel Bramwell Bridges. Seriously, can garden gnomes get any cooler than that?

In fact, there have been a lot of sweet Ubercart sites popping up lately in our live sites directory and on the front page of d.o. Be sure to check these out if you're looking for ideas to add pizazz to your Ubercart site.

Finally, I was happy to score a Node Monkey shirt and sticker courtesy of Drew et al. of Gorton Studios. Maybe Colonel Bridges can sport the shirt on cold days in the garden.

Lullabot's new Drupal book, Using Drupal, is getting quite a bit of coverage and has already garnered at least one solid review. (Thanks, Steph!) What's particularly exciting about the book for me is that this marks the first major appearance of Ubercart in print!

I was informed about the chapter a bit before the book was announced publicly and was totally excited by the news. What made it even sweeter was that webchick did a thorough technical review of the Ubercart chapter and flooded our issue tracker for a couple of days with bug reports and usability suggestions. Isn't it great how that works? The book gets a better chapter and the community gets a better Ubercart.

At least one person believes that the chapter devoted to Ubercart is worth the price of the entire book. If you've been waiting for a chance to get a solid overview of and introduction to installing and configuring Ubercart, then Using Drupal is the book for you.