I refer, of course, to the fact that there are traditionally, in the last four months of every year, more i-Technology conferences that at any other time. To the extent that, on several occasions between now and Christmas, there are events for Internet technology professionals not just in the same week but even in the same city. Other times, there are events in the same week but on opposite coasts.

Allow me to demonstrate. What, for example, were you planning to do with the last week of October? Did you have thoughts of attending the first-ever MAX conference since Adobe and Macromedia merged, for example? Well MAX is being held this year Las Vegas, October 22-26, so that's great. But not so great if you wanted instead to join the Microsofties at VSLive! which happens to be not in Las Vegas at all but in Dallas, Texas, October 24-2. Which in turn hardly matters if all along what you'd been thinking is to attend the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in London's Olympia that week. Yes, October 25-26; when else? As before you ask, yes, Oracle OpenWorld this year is indeed being held in San Francisco's Moscone Center. When? October 22-26. What other week is there?

But on the other hand, a superfluity of conferences is good for one thing: it allows you to choose only the best. Here, with apologies for those where I suppose, as Conference Chair, I ought properly to recuse myself, is my personal set  of recommendations for the Top Five Events To Attend in what's left of 2006:

What: The Future of Web Apps

When: September 13-14, 2006 10:00AM — 6:00PM

Where: Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, Lyon Street, San Francisco CA 94123

Why: This is a 2-day conference, sponsored by Google and Yahoo!, focusing on the development technology you'll be using tomorrow, so it is definitely worth attending for those who want to know about building tomorrow's Flickr, or to catch up on the Digg story (from one idea to nine million page views) or the story behind WordPress. There will be demos of the Google API, while Yahoo! is down to provide delegates with breakfast. Link is here.





What: The New New Internet

When: September 20 7:00AM — 6:30PM

Where: The Ritz-Carlton, Tyson’s Corner, 1700 Tysons Boulevard, McLean, Virginia 22102 



Why: This is a 1-day conference at an absolutely premier venue; the world-famous Ritz-Carlton in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, just outside of the nation's capital. With TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington (who just hit 100,000 readers a day on his leading edge Web 2.0 blog), Harvard Business School’s influential Enterprise Web 2.0 thinker, Andrew McAfee, and an ongoing host of all-stars coming to discuss the game-changing trends of the Web 2.0 era, This will be the only major event in the mid-Atlantic area this year exclusively covering the most exciting new technology trend since the Internet itself. Link is here.

What: AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2006

When: October 2-4 7:00AM — 7:00PM

Where: Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA 



Why: This is a 3-day event, with a pioneering "AJAX Bootcamp" at the conference hotel the day before a 2-day, high-energy event with 12-hour days and non-stop action.  AJAXWorld 2006 is the first full-blown conference by the same team that took the USA by storm on both coasts earlier in the year with its "Real-World AJAX" One- and Two-Day Seminars. 72 speakers,  3 major keynotes, 4 "Power Panels," 8 BOFs. All sessions given by experts on AJAX, Flex, RIAs, and Web 2.0. Those who attend this conference are going to be like those who attended the first ever JavaOne: they're going to be in at the start of Something Big. Link is here.





What: Office 2.0 Conference

When: October 11-12 8:00AM — 8:00PM

Where: St. Regis Hotel, 125 3rd Street - San Francisco, California 94103



Why: This is a new event which aims to  brings together vendors, investors, industry analysts, and journalists to collectively build the foundation for "Office 2," a shorthand for increase personal productivity while refraining from using any application installed on a PC other than a web browser. As its organizer Ismael Ghalimi says: "A new programming model for web-based user interfaces called AJAX and a killer application for it - Gmail - are now bringing new life to this concept." Ghalimi is a passionate entrepreneur and fervent industry observer, founder and CEO of Intalio, creator of BPMI.org and initiator of Office 2.0. Link is here.





What: MAX 2006

When: October 23-26 8:00AM — 8:00PM

Where: The Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada



Why: With 100 unique sessions, this year's event is reputed to be the biggest-ever MAX, in recognition of the expansion of the community served by Adobe tools now that Macromedia and Adobe are one. Speakers include the vast majority of the Editorial Board members of both Web Developer's & Designer's Journal and ColdFusion Developer's Journal. Link is here.