One of the primary goals of Ubercart is to make it easy for folks to sell products and services through their Drupal powered websites. This has been working quite well for us, and we can only get better.

One of the primary goals of a lot of companies is to sell their stuff online. This also works out quite well for us, because a lot of these people don't want to pay money for their shopping cart software but want a lot of the features that Drupal and its contributed modules already provide.

Then there are people who write articles to try and help those companies find software like ours. Enter PC Mag and their recent article titled 31 Days to a Brand-New Web Storefront. The article is definitely aimed at the lowest common denominator, but that didn't stop them from recommending Ubercart for folks with "the technical acumen" looking to roll their own solution.

How cool is that?

Well, I had to keep mum while it was developing, but Lullabot has now announced their Do It With Drupal conference scheduled for December 10-12 in New Orleans, LA. With the doors open for registration, I can post about how awesome it is that they decided to use Ubercart to handle the registrations and gave me the chance to flex my UC muscles in putting it all together. I can also finally express my excitement about being invited down to present Ubercart sessions to the lucky folks who register before the conference fills up.

So, Lyle and I cooked up a module now available through drupal.org called UC Node Checkout for DIWD. This allows you to tie newly created nodes of specified node types to products in a customer's shopping cart. You can expand the node type however you want with CCK so you end up with a robust, customizable product form. When the customer completes checkout, you can execute a little bit of PHP to loop through the products on the order, check for a related node ID, and process the referenced nodes accordingly.

DIWD is of course using this for conference registration nodes, but anyone looking for customizable products that go beyond what Ubercart's product attributes system has to offer can take advantage of UC Node Checkout. I've already got ideas for improving the module, but right now it's a pretty rockin' system.

A hearty thanks to Lullabot for hosting what's looking to be a great conference, getting me out of Louisville as the cold weather sets in, and making sure others can take advantage of the code put together to make their conference site run smoothly.

The first 100 registrants get a $100 discount, and prices go up after that as the date of the conference approaches... so register soon if you want the best deal. I look forward to seeing you there!

Well, Ubercamp is now a couple days over and my sunburned shoulders are starting to heal. It's a small price to pay for an awesome weekend on the Lake with my wife, co-workers, and new friends from Michigan, California, and Tennessee. We were blessed to have such wonderful company, weather, and food!

A quick recap is in order... (If you don't feel like clicking individual picture links, feel free to check out Tim's Ubercamp galleries.)

• We group tested/packaged up the 1.2 release.
• We spent Friday night in the dock getting used to the boat and to one another, chowing down on burgers and brats, and dance dancing our revolution.
• Saturday we taxied out of the marina and found a private cove perfect for tubing, swimming, chowing, and hacking in peace.
• Roundtable discussion over lunch (farm fresh chicken and sweet corn) and into the evening about where Ubercart is, where it's headed, and how we can more effectively enable and benefit from the community (and the Drupal community at large). Good notes here... action to follow.
• I kayaked into the sunset and didn't want to return or go home (ever).
• More informal learning and discussion time over an awesome steak dinner on Saturday and egg breakfasts on Sunday morning.
• Sunday we had some final tubing and WaveRunner play time as we brought the houseboat back to port and lamented the end of Ubercamp 1.0.

So, all in all it was a wonderful wonderful trip...

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Tim has posted a plethora of photos from the weekend to a public Picasa gallery. Those interested in seeing what they missed should check it out!

http://picasaweb.google.com/TimH4982

Sunday morning was a little slower than Saturday morning. There's something about a day on the Lake with late night conversation and hacking (including e-mail... amazing) that just tires you out.

We had a staggered round of breakfasts followed by a little more tubing time and informal chat time. Unfortunately, while the WaveRunner was out the tree stump that anchored our boat on one side of our private cove (incredible, by the way...) decided to break free. This meant Mike and I had to swim to shore, rope in hand, and pull the boat back toward the center so it wouldn't get cozy with the opposite shore. We probably wouldn't have asked for this to happen, but I can't say I didn't enjoy the challenge.

On the way back to the marina, we decided there should be a Drupal boat permanently on the water with wireless internet access. Folks can come hang out for a week, work on a job, and then go on their way. Who wouldn't want to code in such conditions? It really was amazing, and I'm glad we got to hang out with the folks who came.

Acquia has distributed a video the demonstrates setting up a small business website in Drupal. Fortunately for us, they give a brief description and overview of what it would take to use the Ubercart module suite to add the store functionality to the site. It provides a little extra motivation to keep making the modules leaner, cleaner, and easier to use.

Check it out: http://blip.tv/file/1086300/

Well, the weekend is over, but I'll post a little post-campously. Saturday was yet another awesome day. We moved the boat down the lake (with only a minor scare getting out of the marina ) after our final camper arrived that morning. We enjoyed the view and the breeze, but more importantly we enjoyed the company and the breakfast.

Andy scoped out a private cove on the WaveRunner Tim brought down (which is an AWESOME piece of machinery), and we pulled in, tied up, and played in the water a bit. Over a yummy, meaty lunch we got to talking about where Ubercart is, where it's headed, and how we can better enable the community to participate in its development. There were a lot of good ideas passed around the table, and hopefully we'll see the fruit of some in the near future.

I spent some time in the evening taking the kayak out to the mouth of our cove and watching the sun set behind the mountains. It was very peaceful rocking gently on the waves in the middle of nowhere. There were no other boats in site, and my trusty little kayak kept quiet so I could enjoy the view.

The informal chat time over dinner and games in the evening was great, with several opportunities to share and to learn. I suppose my one regret would be not making more time for the informal instructional chats. They happened, but perhaps with an hour blocked out where there was no tubing or diving going on it would've happened a little better.

And... I need a development laptop.

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we ... have ... arrived. We've got 4 out of towners in town for the Ubercamp and made it to the Lake a couple hours ago. We're now sitting down to a nice meaty dinner outside on the boat and are getting used to one another's company quite well.

The boat is pretty much awesome - a three and a half bedroom, two full bath affair with a large back patio and top deck. There's a jetski tied up out back that will surely provide fun tomorrow. For now, it's relaxation time and Ubercart gabbin' time.

Wish you were here.

As I posted before, I'm super excited about the upcoming Drupalcon in Hungary. I've never been further east than Barcelona, and I never imagined I'd get to spend my first anniversary with Christina in Budapest... I'm definitely up for any sightseeing recommendations for our time there.

The Uberdevs have set some goals for Ubercart at Drupalcon, and one of them is to present and share as much information and knowledge as possible. To that end, we've proposed two sessions and a BoF that I hope folks will find useful (and vote for accordingly).

I'll be doing my Introducing Ubercart session for the third time running, presenting attendees with a brief overview of Ubercart, a look at some advanced feature configuration, and an update on Drupal 6 development (with an eager eye toward the future).

Lyle and I are also planning to present A Hands-On Guide to Module Development aimed at beginner and intermediate developers. We're looking to walk through our module development "best practices" that go beyond coding and security standards into the things we've done wrong and are starting to do right when it comes to structuring/writing code and using Drupal and contributed module APIs. Code samples will be provided... check out the description for more info on the format.

Lastly, we've scheduled a BoF to talk about Ubercart in Drupal 6. We're looking to brief folks on where things stand and where we hope to be in the coming months. Hopefully there will be some good brainstorming and collaboration to make Ubercart's core more solid, consistent, and easy to work with on Drupal 6 and beyond.

We're eager to share and to learn, and we're looking forward to a good time once again.

As I posted before, I'm super excited about the upcoming Drupalcon in Hungary. I've never been further east than Barcelona, and I never imagined I'd get to spend my first anniversary with Christina in Budapest... I'm definitely up for any sightseeing recommendations for our time there.

The Uberdevs have set some goals for Ubercart at Drupalcon, and one of them is to present and share as much information and knowledge as possible. To that end, we've proposed two sessions and a BoF that I hope folks will find useful (and vote for accordingly).

I'll be doing my Introducing Ubercart session for the third time running, presenting attendees with a brief overview of Ubercart, a look at some advanced feature configuration, and an update on Drupal 6 development (with an eager eye toward the future).

Lyle and I are also planning to present A Hands-On Guide to Module Development aimed at beginner and intermediate developers. We're looking to walk through our module development "best practices" that go beyond coding and security standards into the things we've done wrong and are starting to do right when it comes to structuring/writing code and using Drupal and contributed module APIs. Code samples will be provided... check out the description for more info on the format.

Lastly, we've scheduled a BoF to talk about Ubercart in Drupal 6. We're looking to brief folks on where things stand and where we hope to be in the coming months. Hopefully there will be some good brainstorming and collaboration to make Ubercart's core more solid, consistent, and easy to work with on Drupal 6 and beyond.

We're eager to share and to learn, and we're looking forward to a good time once again.