Hello all now we have reached 15 people for the meetup.

I think it would be good to a write a quick introduction about yourself, and what you want to learn/discuss at this meetup.

//Warren

Hi my name is Warren Buckley I currently work for Xeed (www.xeed.no) in Norway as a Web Developer. I have been using Umbraco since early part of 2006 and see it as essential tool for creating a website.

I run a personal blog mainly to do with tips/tricks and packages for Umbraco which is at www.creativewebspecialist.co.uk

What I want to learn from this meetup is how other people use umbraco to see if there are tips/tricks or advice to speed up my productivity.

//Warren

Hi,

My name is Paul Symes and I currently work as a developer for Connect Digital, the digital "arm" of an ad-agency based in the Midlands.

I have been using Umbraco since March after being tasked by my boss to find and use an Open Source .NET CMS. After spending weeks grappling with DNN and producing, um, basically nothing (although my Junk Folder received a lot more mail!), I came across Umbraco and was up and running within hours.

I have put two sites live on Umbraco and am gearing up to launch a third one in the next week or so. This will actually be a v4 site, which on the one hand is pretty cool, but quite possibly foolish as well ;)

Umbraco is the first CMS I have used "in anger" to develop and deliver solutions (did I just write that!?). In previous lives, I have done standard ASP.NET development, WinForms, and BizTalk. I'm slowly embracing the XSLT way of doing things (although there may still be the occasional outburst on Twitter about it) and am finding myself viewing Umbraco more as a framework that enables me to develop an application rather than being the application. If that makes sense.

Same as Warren, I'd like to discover some new tricks that will help me with new Umbraco sites. I found the "Hidden Gems" section at Code Garden really useful, and would like to see something like that in London. Above all though, I'm looking forward to meeting other users of Umbraco and discussing just what "Expression must evaluate to a node-set" actually means...

Paul

Hi,

My name is Lee Messenger, I run a small web design company (www.n3o.co.uk) and literally downloaded Umbraco yesterday!!

I wrote and have my own .NET CMS I use for a lot of sites, but am looking for something powerful and with lots of addons etc.. And Umbraco seems to be a great fit, and the community seems great.

What I want to learn from the meeting is pretty much everything ... lol ... Tips n tricks, how Umbraco works, How People use it, Important features you have to know to create add ons etc.. etc..

Thanks
Lee

Greetings,

My Name is Digby Field, I run a web company specialising in web applications. Based in East Midlands but most of my clients are situated in London.

I have been using Umbraco for about 6 months and have a few live sites out there. These are fairly straight forward public facing sites but I would like to investigate incorporating custom applications within Umbraco.

I have still not found time to get familiar with extending Umbraco but plan to soon.

I am very interested in finding out more about V4 and would like to get Umbraco certified, so interested in any up and coming courses.

Looking forward to meeting up and learning more.

Digby

Hi,

I'm Lesley, one of the few female Umbacians around :)

I discovered Umbraco about a year ago, but because I don't have a lot of time in my schedule for web site dev, I've not managed to get as as deep into it as I would like. I have one site on the verge of go-live, pending a custom user control I need to build, and plan to use it as much as possible in the future.

At the meetup, I'd like to see what people are doing with v4. I have a copy but haven't played with it yet because I'm concentrating on my v3 production site. I also want to learn about integrating with existing database systems.

Looking forward to meeting you all,
Lesley

Hello fellow UK Umbracians!

I'm David Conlisk, a freelance .net developer based in Glasgow, Scotland. I've set up my own company called Web Garden Limited, web-garden.co.uk, which I use to provide my services to corporate clients mostly.

I've used Umbraco for a couple of sites now, and each one gets a little more complex. At the moment I'm working on the Web Garden site using Umbraco v4.

I am interested in learning more about extending Umbraco. I learnt a lot about that at Codegarden 08, which was my main reason for going. For the UK meeting, I'd love to chat more to people about what they are using Umbraco for, what they see as being exciting in v4 (nitros and boost anyone?), and generally get to know some more of the UK Umbraco community members.

Looking forward to it!

David

Hello all,

My name is Darren Ferguson. I am currently contracting and providing occasional freelance services through my company, Ferguson Moriyama (http://www.fergusonmoriyama.com)

I also have an Umbraco based blog at http://www.darren-ferguson.com/

I have been working with content management systems for more than 10 years. I've used Umbraco for nearly 3 years now.

I'm attending the meetup primarily for networking. I am hoping to make the move from being a contractor to more traditionally self employed - working from home - in the near future.

I'm hoping to meet people who have already made this jump or possibly might want to put some work my way or even collaborate on some startup type ideas.

Hi folks,

My name is Hendy and I'm a freelance .net developer. I recommended Umbraco to a client about a year ago and have been working with it ever since. I've been constantly suprised by how flexible Umbraco can be, and I'm looking foward to find out how others are using it, and what's happening with v4.

Afternoon all,

My name is Jay. I am just interested in learning about umbraco. I have only recently discovered it so have lots to pick up.
See you all soon.

Hi guys,

I'm Julien Decaudin and I'm developer at SAS in London. I've been using Umbraco since a year and developed around five websites with it. Umbraco is now our main CMS solution at SAS and we're looking forward to improve the way we use it by sharing experiences during this meetup. I'm particularly interested to chat about integrating and delivering Umbraco to client aka "non-technical but demanding" people. Of course version 4 would be an excellent excuse to spend hours chatting as well ;)

See ya!

Sorry I have become snowed under with work this week - Sorry to jump out at the last minute.

As some of you maybe aware I will not be attending on Friday due to an accident I was in on Friday.

I hope it all goes well and please let me know how it went, what you discussed and any notes you have that I can read over.

Thanks,
Warren

Hi guys, here's a proposition of schedule for Friday:

9.30-10.00 People's reception
10.00-10.30 Who's who - to learn a bit more about each other
10.30-12.00 Show & Tell sessions - 10-15 minutes each to show what you've done so far with Umbraco
12.00-13.00 What's SAS been doing with Umbraco following by questions and general chat
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.00 Umbraco V4
15.00-17.00ish OpenSpace session
17.30-??? Pub debriefing (if people are only available on the evening they can join at this time)

Of course this schedule is flexible depending how it goes and how many people will be there.
Let me know if you finally can't make it and, as we now have free space, it's not too late to come.

See you soon!
Julien

Just a quick note.
I've injured my back so may not be able to make it myself tomorrow.
So I will go onto the 'watching' list for now.

how is today going?

I look forward to your feedback, notes and discussions you had.

Warren

Hello all,

I've put the notes from the day on my blog, which you can find here:

Umbraco UK Developer Meeting Overview

They are split over a number of posts to make it a little easier to find the good bits!

Thanks again to the SAS guys for organising everything, it was a great day, very useful and I'm looking forward to the next one already!

Cheers,

David