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HTML5 wants to make some major changes to the way we deliver media over the web and the way we mark up our pages, but it also gives us a bunch of new stuff in the browser's programming model. To ignore these new JavaScript APIs is to give up on a richer browser UI and a lot of fun.

In this session, we'll cover the geolocation API, local storage, the client-side SQL database, support for offline applications, in-browser threading, web sockets, and more. We'll look at the real, working code for as many features as we can manage, and discuss cross-browser compatibility issues as well. HTML5 is not an optional skill for web developers in 2011. Don't miss it!

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You've read that the relational model is old and busted, and there are newer, faster, web-scale ways to store your application's data. You've heard that NoSQL databases are the future! Well, what is all this NoSQL stuff about? Is it time to ditch Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server in favor of the new guard? To be able to make that call, there's a lot you'll have to learn.

In this session, we'll take a whirlwind tour of several representative non-relational data stores, including Cassandra, MongoDB, and Neo4J. We'll learn the very different ways they represent data, and we'll see their unique strengths and weaknesses in various kinds of applications. Along the way, we'll learn why new technologies must be introduced to address today's scaling challenges, and what compromises we'll have to make if we want to abandon the databases of our youth. We'll review what ACID means, think about query idioms, and talk about the CAP theorem. It's an exciting time to be storing and retrieving data, and the opportunity is now before us to learn things we could ignore just a few years ago. Come to this session for a solid introduction to a growing field.

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Want to go deep on a popular NoSQL database? Cassandra is a scalable, highly available, column-oriented data store in use at Netflix, Twitter, Reddit, Rackspace, and other web-scale operations. It offers a compelling combination of a rich data model, a robust deployment track record, and a sound architecture, making it a good choice of NoSQL databases to study first.

In this session, we'll talk about Cassandra's data model, look at its query idioms, talk about how to deploy it, and look at use cases in which it is an appropriate data storage solution. We'll study its origins in the Amazon Dynamo project and Google's BigTable, and learn how its architecture helps us achieve the gold standard of scalability: horizontal scalability on commodity hardware. You'll leave prepared to begin experimenting with Cassandra immediately and planning its adoption in your next project.

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Grails is emerging as a standard JVM web framework in environments ranging from startups to the enterprise. It's a full-stack solution build on rock-solid components, fully relying on convention over configuration, and using the best application language the JVM has yet seen: Groovy. This is the place to be for web apps on the JVM.

In this introductory talk, we'll get a whirlwind introduction to Grails, visiting seven things you need to know about the framework to get started.

1. Programming in Groovy
2. Creating an app
3. Interacting with the database
4. Building your UI
5. Processing web requests
6. Tapping the huge plugin community
7. Deploying to production

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Gradle. Another build tool? Come on! But before you say that, take a look at the one you are already using.

Whether your current tool is Make, Rake, Ant, or Maven, Gradle has a lot to offer. It leverages a strong object model like Maven, but a mutable, not predetermined one. Gradle relies on a directed acyclic graph (DAG) lifecycle like Maven, but one that can be customized. Gradle offers imperative build scripting when you need it (like Ant), but declarative build approaches by default (like Maven). In short, Gradle believes that conventions are great -- as long as they are headed in the same direction you need to go. When you need to customize something in your build, your build tool should facilitate that with a smile, not a slap in the face. And customizations should be in a low-ceremony language like Groovy. Is all this too much to ask?

Gradle has received the attention of major open source efforts and has chalked up significant conversions by the Spring Integration, Hibernate, and Grails projects. What do these technology leaders see in this bold new build tool? They see not only a better way to build Java applications, but an extensive ecosystem of connecting to existing Ant and Maven build files while expanding the horizon of test, CI, and deployment automation in an easy manner. Join us for 90 minutes and let us take you on this same walk of discovery of the most innovative build tool you've ever seen.