It was with excitement that I joined your association when I came down to pune and hoped for many conversations with like minded people. You were my first window to pune tech scene and boy I was reading every conversation with a persistent enthusiasm. I took my time as a passive reader of the mailing list and understand the interactions, and things were going good between us. Well one fine day, I decided to reply to one of the mails, it was to share my experience with a person who was facing what I had before and well it bounced back saying "being moderated". I checked my subscription and all I could, e mailed your administrators asking if there is a problem with my e mail, after few days when discussion had died I got a email saying I was top posting and honestly I was like "WOW" I didnt even know about this stuff and I have been on internet for last 7 years. I tried again, it bounced back again, this time my mail text was too large and was not plain text, so I learnt more on the protocol of talking to you. I then again tried, keeping my previous mistakes checked and well it bounced off again, after receiving the automated "In moderation" email I waited, having got no response I wrote to thee again and I was told that my e mail has been posted now. Today my reply was a short one, it was not top posted and well it bounced again. Have I been the unlucky one? Well before I could ask that to myself I got a email from a stranger asking "why do my e mails bounce to plug"? Clearly many people are facing the problem and they have a honest intention to communicate, I don't know about others but I think I'll pass or maybe stay "Read Only" coz clearly for me tools exist to make life easier and not to come in the way. 

Cheers

Dipen

Anyways the point of the post is to introduce you to couch surfing 101 written by Benjamin Varquez (One Couch Surfer) which I have converted to a pdf (with my limited formatting vodoo) as it was hard to read the way it was presented in the forums. I hope someone like me who has got used to reading small chunks on internet would appreciate the effort. Also Big Kudos to Benjamin to write the guide in first place. 

I have been on couch surfing for quite some time now but I recently got excited when Mitchell (whom I met at GNUNIFY) came to live with us for few days. All about him and times we spent in a separate post. 

1. Embracing the Web Platform - This session would be about the state of web by Arun Rangnathan, straight from horses mouth "The talk is meant to be an overview of the web in 2010, and what the future holds in store for us." 
2. WEB.NEXT - This session would talk about jetpack (Disclaimer: I have man crush on azaa Raskin) and weave. I have great-great expectations from this one.  
3. MySQL Performance Tuning: Top 10 Tips - I am hoping this one to be very interactive and would love if the speaker can include sharding tips, using MYSQL for key-value pair storage (ala friendfeed) and tuning tools to monitor IO etc. I am sure the list is ready but it would be great to hear experiences of audience. 
4. eJOSH CMS - Content Management for non-IT professionals in India - Being Drupal fanboy and professional, I would check out some competition here. 
5. FOSS way of making fonts - Typography is something I have high respect for (thanks to the movie helvetica and posts by mark boulton) but know nothing about, so this one comes as a nice surprise and I am hoping it to be an awesome session.