Dear Aunt TUAW: I'm going to WWDC. What should I pack?

Dear Aunt TUAW,

I've got my golden tickets to WWDC but this is my first time traveling to Oz. Do you have some suggestions for what I should pack and any tips for dealing with things once I'm out there?

Thanks a bunch!

Your loving nephew,

Arthur

Dear Arthur,

Auntie turned to two of her favorite nephews for advice. Oliver Drobnik of Cocoanetics offered her an extremely practical list.

His suggestions include

• A camping chair if you plan to queue from 6 am for the keynote and some friends (or make some) that will save you your seat or place in line when you need to step out.

• For MacBooks without Ethernet: the USB Ethernet LAN adapter, A power adapter for your Macbook with a US-plug converter, possibly a 10W USB adapter to charge iPad and iPhone with independently from MacBook, and an iPad/iPhone loaded with all your done or in-progress apps that you want to show off to your colleagues, apps that you want to schedule a design review for, and apps that you want to speak to the app review team about.

• Business Cards with your Twitter account on it and possibly a promo code for your best apps

• Some good questions and possibly example projects to ask the Apple engineers in the labs, CATiledLayer, iCloud with CoreData, etc.

Auntie notes that you'll want to bring along a sweater or jacket for that campout (it gets cold out there). Plus, you can purchase a folding chair once you get there. One less thing to pack. Here's Yelp's report on drugstores near Moscone. Auntie has purchased her chairs at Walgreens. Consider donating your chair to a worthy local before heading home.

As for business cards, TUAW's favorite vendor for high quality cards is moo.com (You can get a discount if you're an about.me customer).

Nephew Chris Forsythe of the Growl Project recommends that you consider loading a clean OS X and Xcode install via VMWare or Parallels. That way, you can do the labs at WWDC without affecting your dev workspace.

Finally, Auntie recommends that you pack some sucking candy (helps keep your ears from popping on flights, make sure to bring along enough to share with everyone), some deodorant (be thoughtful to the other 5000 geeks standing in line with you), and that you call Auntie on your cell during the keynote so she can listen in.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

p.s. Auntie's nephew Rudy points out: "If you plug your laptop power brick into the power strip, hogging multiple outlets, you will be unplugged by your fellow conference goers." Bring the corded adapter and consider purchasing one of these.