How to get the Facebook Timeline (officially and unofficially)

Facebook today announced the Timeline (currently in beta), which lets you highlight all the important updates of your life on one page. It's not out yet, but when it does finally roll out in a few weeks, it will completely replace your current Facebook profile.
When you get access to it, you'll be able to choose to publish it immediately or take a few days to review what's there and add anything that's missing. Some want nothing to do with this feature, but others, knowing that it's inevitably coming, want to get a head start on building their Timeline.
The official way to get the new feature is to go to facebook.com/about/timeline and click on the green Sign Me Up button. You won't get it right away, but you will presumably be put on a list of people who will get it sooner rather than later.
The unofficial way to get the new feature is to claim you're a developer. I've written up a quick guide (with screenshots!) on how to get this to work: How to (unofficially) get the Facebook Timeline (via TechCrunch).
See also:
- Facebook has just 17 Open Graph launch partners
- Facebook's Zuckerberg unveils revamped profile: Timeline
- Screenshots: the Facebook Timeline and the Open Graph
- Zuckerberg: 500 million daily active users on Facebook
- Watch it live: Facebook 2011 f8 developer conference
- Facebook gets media and lifestyle app integration, including Spotify