Here's the latest events news in the Ruby and Rails worlds as of November, 2008. Please comment if you have other events to mention - people will see them, and we can possibly mention them on the next post:

RubyConf08 - November 6-8, 2008 - Orlando, FL, USA

RubyConf celebrates its 8th birthday! This eighth international Ruby conference takes place at the Omni Orlando Resort at Championsgate in Orlando, Florida later this week. You can stay at the resort itself and enjoy three full days of Ruby conference goodness. The schedule looks ridiculously good - except Giles Bowkett got taken off the speakers list because some of the organizers wouldn't understand what a sense of humor is even if it slapped them in the face. No tickets left, but there's a waiting list - just on the off-chance that hundreds of angry Giles Bowkett fans quite rightly tear up their tickets in disgust.

North West Ruby User Group Pub Meet - November 20, 2008 - Manchester, UK

The NWRUG is a popular Ruby user group in the North West of England - the home of entertainer Frank Sidebottom. They're looking to spread the word and extend their influence further though, so if you're in the North West of England, get your arse down to The Paramount on Oxford Street in a couple weeks' time and have a pint of Boddingtons for me. If, however, you're like me and live in the North but are too lazy to drive across the Pennines, check out Leeds Ruby Thing instead.

acts_as_conference 2009 - February 6 & 7, 2009 - Orlando, Florida, USA

acts_as_conference is a Florida-based Rails conference. Last year was a success - selling out all 150 tickets. Currently the 2009 conference is in planning. 175 tickets will be up for grabs this time - the venue will be better and breakfast and lunch will be supplied on both days of the conference. Organizer Robert Dempsey has just put out a call for papers, so if you want to give a presentation there, get to the official site and let them know. The deadline for talk proposals is November 30.

Atlanta Merb Day - December 6, 2008 - Atlanta, Georgia, USA

The Atlanta Ruby Users Group presents Merb Day, a single-track conference geared towards Ruby and Rails developers who’d like to dive into Merb, a hacker’s framework. Atlanta’s first Ruby conference, Merb Day is an opportunity to exhibit Ruby’s strengths to the city’s growing technology economy. Michael Ivey and Yehuda Katz will be among the attendees and tickets are $65.

Voices That Matter: Professional Ruby Conference - November 17-20, 2008 - Boston, MA, USA

The Voices That Matter: Professional Ruby Conference will "provide practical, people-oriented and in-depth information about using Ruby and the Rails platform to create dynamic technology solutions." Obie Fernandez heads a solid speaker list including Ruby and Rails luminaries like Giles Bowkett, Thomas Enebo, Hal Fulton, Chad Pytel, Tammer Saleh, Ezra Zygmuntowicz, and others.

Registration is still open and costs $995. Supposedly if you use the promotional code PRZSPNS you get a $200 discount (for a total of $795)! (Disclaimer: Ruby Inside is cross promoting with Pearson. No money, but Ruby Inside's logo features in their promotional materials.)

Ruby Fun Day - November 22, 2008 - Sector 59, Noida, New Delhi, India

Are you in India? Can you get to New Delhi? Do you like fun? Do you like Ruby? Answer yes to all of those questions and you could go to Ruby Fun Day in the intriguingly named "Sector 59" area of Noida, India. It's billed as a "day full of Ruby fun" with an emphasis on showing and demonstrating code and cool Ruby projects. I quite like the sound of that.