Go DevMental will be held in eight  cities across Canada and is catered specifically for a computer science and software engineering student audience. In the words of Microsoft themselves:

“Go DevMENTAL is Microsoft’s free academic event for student developers. It’s your ultimate resource for cutting-edge tech, and a great place to connect with friends and industry experts alike. We’ll show you the potential you can unlock in your apps—from the browser to the computer to the phone. You’ll learn to write apps and games for Windows® Phone 7, get a handle on WebMatrix, an awesome free website building tool, punch-up your animation skills using Expression Blend® for Silverlight®. It’s free but seating is limited, so please Register Now.”

Go DevMental will be coming to Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary on 8 evenings between September and December. For dates and more information, and to register, you can visit the conference website at:

www.godevmental.ca

We feel this is a great opportunity that you can’t afford to pass up. And as an added bonus we will try to have a few CUSECers in attendance at Go DevMental to keep you informed on CUSEC 2011, offer you some exclusive pre-conference swag and help you get ready for the 10th anniversary edition of CUSEC in January!

Take care and we’ll see you at a Go DevMental near you!

On that note, we’ve decided on our theme for CUSEC 2011 and we need an accompanying logo. Hopefully, this being a great time to get involved has sunken in by now and you’re jumping at the chance to be the designer of our 10th logo. If so, here’s the skinny:

The Theme

We’ve decided on the theme ‘Hello, World!’ for CUSEC 2011 (Yes we’re sure it’s never been used before). The theme relates to the emergence of the Software Engineering profession in larger society:

Software Engineering has long been seen as an exclusive and obscure profession, found solely within the purview of an eccentric crowd, in dark cubicles around the world. Well, no more. With the rise of social media, mobile technology and ever more useful productivity tools, software has not only become ubiquitous, but essential to our very existence. As a result of software’s increasing importance, the Software Engineering profession has risen unabashedly to prominence. Hello World, we are the Software Engineers and we’re here to stay!

The Job

What we need is a logo that meets the following criteria:

• Must have the text “CUSEC 2011″.

• Must have the theme “Hello, World!”.

• Must have some sort of symbol that you think represents the theme.

• Should look good on a t-shirt.

• Can’t rely on many colours. Must be able to print in black and white.

• Should still look distinctive at smaller sizes.

Here are a few examples from previous years:

2009:

2010:

The Payoff

Remember when we said this is a great time to get involved? Well that should be motivation enough. If it’s not, here’s what’s in it for you:

• Free admission to CUSEC 2011.

• An invitation to one of the speaker dinners.

• Copies of our posters and an extra t-shirt or two.

• You work on T-Shirts and Posters across Canada for the world to see.

The Instructions

We know you’ve already started designing your logo, but let us interrupt you one more time to tell you how to submit it once you’re done. Send us an email at info@cusec.net with your finished logo attached.  Please send us your submission in an easy to consume format (JPEG, PNG, etc) and make sure to have a vector format version handy for later consumption. A shady judging process will then take place after which we will announce the winner here
on this blog. So stay tuned.

The Deadline

UPDATE: The Logo Contest deadline has been extended to Tuesday August 17th at midnight.

We are giving you two weeks to take advantage of this once in a lifetime (until next year) offer. So if you want your work to be considered, have it submitted by Monday August 9th at midnight sharp, or else! (you won’t be considered for judging. That’s all).

So have at it, have fun, and leave your mark on CUSEC’s 10th birthday bash!!

How’s it hanging? It’s hard to believe that it has been almost three months since CUSEC 2010. The organisers had a great time putting on the conference and we hope everyone had a blast. For those of you who don’t know us already, we are Sven James and Thomas Hibbert, the CUSEC 2011 co-chairs, at your service. While three months since CUSEC 2010 may mean nostalgia and withdrawal symptoms for you, for us it means nine months until CUSEC 2011. As early as it may seem, it’s time to get the ball rolling.

CUSEC 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of our beloved conference, and we are aiming to make it the best CUSEC yet. But we can’t accomplish this goal alone. To pull it off we need your help. Did you enjoy CUSEC 2010? Are there speakers or companies who you’d love to see at the conference? Do you feel a calling to spread the good word among your friends and classmates? Then you’d be perfect as a CUSEC 2011 organiser. This is your chance to shape the conference we all love and make sure Canada’s best student-run software engineering conference keeps kicking ass.

For CUSEC 2011 to be a success, we need speakers, sponsors and most importantly students! As a volunteer you can:

• Join our promotions team as a Head Delegate, spread the CUSEC gospel to your fellow students and, like Chuck Norris, be revered among your peers.

• Be a part of our Sponsorship team, bring companies to CUSEC, and maybe land yourself a job or internship in the process.

• Help out with logistics, plan cool CUSEC parties and events, and immortalise your name by subliminally including it on all CUSEC 2011 T-Shirts.

• Have a say in who speaks at CUSEC 2011. However, please note neither George Lucas nor Leonard Nimoy are Software Engineers.

If nothing above tickles your fancy we still want to hear from you. There is a lot to be done and we can never have too much help.

If you’re still not convinced, there are perks to being a volunteer too! Networking opportunities with some of the brightest minds in software engineering. Direct access to recruiters from firms such as Microsoft, Direct Energy, IBM and RIM. A chance to work closely with Sven and Thomas. A general feeling of warmth and fuzziness. And if that wasn’t enough, you get a front row seat to CUSEC’s 10th anniversary festivities.

So, if the allure of wealth, fame and influence in the software engineering sphere has proved too great to resist, drop us a line! Let us know what you’d be interested in doing and what you’re good at. We want to hear from you even if you aren’t interested in being a volunteer. Your feedback on CUSEC 2010 and wish list for CUSEC 2011 are invaluable. The bottom line is, if you have read this far, send an e-mail to chair@cusec.net and let us know what’s on your mind. CUSEC is a conference by students for students and we need everyone’s help to make sure it lives another 10 years.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Sven James and Thomas Hibbert
CUSEC 2011 Co-Chairs

Last year, he delivered one of the funniest talks that CUSEC has ever had. Here’s the video evidence.

Joey deVilla – Squeezeboxes, Start-Ups and Selling Out: A Tech Evangelist’s Story from CUSEC on Vimeo.

And if you don’t have an hour to spare, here’s the summary.

You’ll spend anywhere from a third to half (or more) of your waking life at work, so why not enjoy it? That’s the philosophy of Microsoft Developer Evangelist Joey deVilla, who’s had fun while paying the rent. He’ll talk about his career path, which includes coding in cafes, getting hired through your blog, learning Python at Burning Man, messy office romances, go-go dancing, leading an office coup against his manager, interviewing at a porn company and using his accordion to make a Microsoft Vice President run away in fear. There will be stories, career advice and yes, a rock and roll accordion number or two.

CUSEC 2010 is only two days away but that’s not too late to buy your ticket!

Colin Smillie – Developing for the Facebook Platform from CUSEC on Vimeo.

One week left before CUSEC 2010 kicks off so get signed up if you haven’t already!

Please note: We had sound quality issues for the first few minutes. The sounds gets much better at 3:38.

For those who are pressed for time, here’s Francis’ summary:

People have been programming computers for less than a century–which might be why we don’t know much about what we’re doing, and why we keep comparing our field to others. I’ll share some thoughts on what the discipline of computer programming can take from other fields such as math, engineering, writing, law, and politics. I’ll also discuss the implications of such similarities on how we do our jobs, and how we conceive of our careers.

Again, if you enjoyed this talk and want more, check out this year’s speakers and come out to CUSEC 2010!

Avi Bryant – Bad Hackers Copy, Great Hackers Steal from CUSEC on Vimeo.

If you enjoyed this talk and want more, check out this year’s speakers and come out to CUSEC 2010!

Follow us on Twitter, subscribe to the RSS feed, and stay tuned — we’ll be releasing more videos from CUSEC 2009 as we approach this year’s conference!

For the fourth year in a row, CUSEC is proud to host Democamp!

DemoCamp brings together people who want to show off their projects and get feedback as well as those who just want to see and get excited about what other people in Montreal and other Universities are up to. Entrepreneurs, hobbyists, students and professionals are all welcome… demo or not.

Like last year, we’re thrilled that Microsoft Tech Evangelist and accordion-extraordinaire Joey deVilla will be hosting.

Stay tuned for details but in the meantime, here’s the important stuff:

The Details

• When: Thursday, January 21, 2010
• Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm
• Where: Omni Mont-Royal Hotel, Salon des Saisons Ballroom
• Price: free!

Want to Demo?

There are two rules:

• Rule #1: No powerpoints allowed. Why no .ppt? Well, do you have working software or don’t you?
• Rule #2: Demos are not a second over 15 minutes each. Short and sweet!

If that sound like something you can handle, send us an email at chair@cusec.net.

However, if you don’t spend your days performing penetration tests, reverse engineering protocols or just generally abusing the hell out of software, the part where Thomas really shines is in the quality of his technical writing.

If you know nothing at all about information security (which is far more likely than most software engineers might let on), you can at least walk away knowing that if you have to type the letters “A-E-S” into your source code, you’re doing it wrong. Or discover what you need to know about secure password schemes. Once you’ve finished digesting that, you can get started on his 12 step program for indie developers.

Suffice it to say that we’re fairly interested in what he has to talk about. In the meanwhile, if you’re feeling frisky, you can learn more about the inhuman competition Ptacek is up against.

Broke and professionally inexperienced, he got a job working at an adware company analysing spam. He gradually wrote more and more adware code, protecting his employers and attacking their competitors, and before long he found himself engaged in what amounted to a ‘distributed code war on a 4-10 million-node network‘.

In the process, he deployed more Scheme code than anybody else on the planet and learned a thing or two about human nature and the problem of evil.

Matt’s a fun and engaging speaker, and his tale of how a series of small and inconsequential decisions can imperceptibly lead to dramatic outcomes and ethical quandaries will resonate with everyone.