This Week in TYPO3 (Week 16, 2014)

Week ending April 18 This past week has been quiet just before Good Friday and the Easter weekend. I guess a good time to close of the first quarter of 2014 where we saw the release of TYPO3 CMS 6.2 and more progress, in the form of new beta release, for TYPO3 Neos, on the road to maturity. Everyone welcomes and needs this long weekend, which at least in Europe we can enjoy with some very nice weather. A lot of things are happening in the TYPO3 Association with changes in the composition of the board and the expert advisory board. It is a good moment to specially thank Jürgen Egeling who has lead the TYPO3 Association with his steady demeanour for so many years. Olivier Dobberkau, who we also know as the Reverend Neverend, has taken over the task of leading the TYPO3 Association. No less thanks go to Søren Schaffstein, who we all know as TYPO3 photographer extraordinaire. Søren has led Public Relations and communication for a good many years and finds Danijela Grigic as his successor. The TYPO3 Association is reaching out to the community in different directions and establishing in what way the community can be supported best. For that matter the education committee is one such initiative. Efforts to connect to companies using TYPO3 and to get feedback from them have just started with a first marketing-company meeting last week in Berlin. The TYPO3 Association is trying to establish community metrics and the return of investment on the financial input for community management. At the same time the <link http: typo3.org news article always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life>Community Working Group has been founded that functions as a 100% community initiative. I am very happy to see that the human values of our community get a lot of attention lately. The TYPO3 community has always been a very technical focused community that is proud to create excellent free software. This focus sometimes makes us forget we are just humans in this great community and that soft skills are just as important as technical skills in our day to day collaboration. People skills are also just as difficult to learn as programming languages and we cannot take our human to human interaction for granted, just as we cannot take for granted that our code does not comply to certain guidelines. Some times we need to take a deep breath, pause and take a step back to consider our social guidelines like respect, humility, appreciation and trust. That is where to find the true spirit of collaboration.

TYPO3 CMS

Updates for 5 current branches have been <link http: typo3.org news article typo3-cms-621-618-6013-4718-4533-released>released this week for TYPO3 CMS. A first update for TYPO3 CMS 6.2 LTS and updates for branches 4.5 up to 6.1, which have not been released since December 2013, because of all the work on TYPO3 CMS 6.2.

Events

CMS Garden at LinuxTag (May 8-10, Berlin, Germany)

<link http: cmsgarden.org>CMS Garden is a community oriented initiative where Open Source CMS-es join forces to represent themselves at fairs and conferences, which otherwise would not be possible. TYPO3 will be present again at this initiative that meets growing enthusiasm with every new event that happens. Anyone from the Berlin TYPO3 community is invited or maybe even urged to participate at the CMS Garden booth to demo and to answer questions about TYPO3 and Neos. Contact me in Twitter or through mail if you want to join or have questions regarding TYPO3 at CMS Garden.

Developer Days (June 19-22, Eindhoven, The Netherlands)

Call for Papers closes right at the end of this month! Please submit your papers if you have not done so by now. The organisation is very happy to have received a good number of Flow and Neos proposals for sessions. If you want to learn about Neos the Developer Days are the place to be.
T3DD14 orga: ben van 't ende, Patrick Broens, andrea Herzog Kienast and Edward Lenssen As a special this year the Developer Days will feature workshops by Mark Johnson and Scott Wilson from OSS Watch. OSS Watch provides unbiased advice and guidance on the use, development, and licensing of free software, open source software, and open source hardware. The organisation has also managed to secure yoga sessions on Friday and Saturday morning before the official start of the program. Join yoga teacher Michelle Tarenskeen for two early-morning yoga classes Bring your stiff shoulders, sore wrists, tight hips and aching back. Leave with ideas on how to incorporate 5 minutes of practice into your busy day to care for your body and mind. More on this on the <link http: t3dd14.typo3.org>Developer Days website.

Code sprints

Community Tools (May 2-4, Wiesbaden, Germany)

For the past three year we had about 3-4 code sprints every year with a focus on typo3.org. The current situation regarding our central hub is stable, we have an excellent deployment process running and a maintenance contract with AOE that ensures security updates and other necessary maintenance tasks are done in a timely matter for the website. The next sprint will be from May 2-4 in the new AOE offices in the heart of Wiesbaden. A number of items are already on the 'urgent' list. These sprints usually have a wide scope and are very interesting and worthwhile to join. Topics for the sprint are taking shape and can be found on the wiki. Upgrading (preparation) to the new TYPO3 version is an important topic and furthermore topics like TER and integration of the certification website needs to be taken care of. Steps have been taken currently to replace the <link http: buzz.typo3.org>BUZZ blogs by a modern system based on the latest TYPO3 CMS version and in a responsive design based on the new introduction package. This initiative definitely has some easy starting points where you do not need expert programming skills. The coming sprint is not fully booked and can still use your support. If you have any questions regarding the sprint and want to know in what way you can contribute to our community tools, please contact me through Twitter or email. \

Miscellaneous

TYPO3 on Amazon Web Services

Earlier this year, Michael Schams, who has put a lot of effort into the translation of the What's New slides for TYPO3 CMS, released a set of TYPO3 instances as machine images (virtual servers) at the well-known cloud-based computing platform Amazon Web Services (AWS). Everyone with an AWS account can launch these Debian Linux based machines with a click of a button in various locations around the world. A “root” login via SSH and an administrator account at the TYPO3 backend allow unrestricted access to the server and to TYPO3. Currently, TYPO3 CMS 6.1 and our latest flagship TYPO3 CMS 6.2 LTS are available. To launch an instance, go to schams.net/typo3-on-aws/marketplace/, choose your preferred TYPO3 version and follow the steps through the launch process. Running the software is offered free of charge. AWS usage fees may occur, depending what the user chooses. Latter starts at $0.00 (absolutely free) for users who qualify for the AWS Free Tier. If someone chooses a high-performance server type, adds a LoadBalancer, a CDN, an external database server, etc. then, yes, costs may occur of course, but this is *optional* and someone can run a server with TYPO3 pre-installed at AWS for free, using the machine images I have created and I maintain. By the way: even if someone builds a high-end infrastructure around the TYPO3 server, which may result in costs, Michael does not get one Cent. He offers the TYPO3 machine images for free - that's Michael's contribution to the TYPO3 community. (Sorry to have kept you waiting so long Michael)

jweiland.net new platinum member

<link http: jweiland.net>It cannot be said often enough how much we need and appreciate our platinum sponsors. They offer a substantial part in the financial support of the TYPO3 Association, thus contributing to the future development of TYPO3. As latest platinum sponsor <link http: typo3.org news article jweilandnet-becomes-platinum-member-of-the-typo3-association>the TYPO3 association welcomes jweiland.net.

German engineering

Tiroler TYPO3 enthusiast Stefan Schoner (@stefanschoner) is not shy to show of German engineering at it's best with his TYPO3 branded BMW. Way to go Stefan! I wish you all a great relaxed Easter. ~ben Check out the events calendar for a user group meeting, code sprint or other event near you: <link http: typo3.org events>typo3.org/events/. Do not hesitate to share you TYPO3 activities in 'This Week in TYPO3'. Just let me (@benvantende) know what you are up to.