6 Things I Learned from WordCamp Dallas

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WordCamp 2009 is officially in the books. With two and a half days of some of the best community, speakers and information, it was an incredible event. Over the course of the weekend, I saw some of the best blogging-related presentations, met many of the most wonderful people in the blogging world and observed some of the worst bowling ever witnessed by man (though most of that was my own).

The event was a smashing success with over 300 attendees. Organized by John Pozadzides and sponsored prominently by his company, Woopra, it was, according to those in attendance, the second-largest WordCamp in the world.

But while the best part of these WordCamps is always the community and getting to meet all of the people who share your passion, there were also a slew of great speakers, 16 in total, plus a panel discussion. Even for a veteran blogger, there was a great deal to learn.

So, as I try to digest and take in everything I saw and learned at WordCamp Dallas, a more complete recap is forthcoming on my site, here are five things I’m holding onto dearly as WordCamp Dallas closes up for the year (in no particular order). [Read more…]

WordPress and WordPressMU Merged: Whoa!

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WordPress CommunityWordCamp San Francisco 2009 this past weekend was a resounding success, but there is some major confusion coming from the presentation on the State of the Word by about the “merger” of WordPress and WordPressMU.

In his presentation, Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, told the more than 700 attendees news about WordPress and its relatives under the umbrella, a form of stockholders report. He also announced that – the ORG part of WordPress – would be merged into .

Many, including Ozh of Planet Ozh, The Theme Lab, and Aaron Brazell were quick to announce their thoughts about the “merger of WordPress and WordPressMU,” misunderstanding the story they were getting across the live blogs and twit-stream from WordCamp San Francisco. [Read more…]

WordCamp San Francisco 2009 Rocks the WordPress Community

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WordCamp San Francisco 2009 was this past weekend and brought together over 700 WordPress enthusiasts to the Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF. There were many speakers covering a wide variety of topics including Timothy Ferriss of the The 4-Hour Workweek, Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.TV on building an audience with video shows, Scott Porad of Pet Holdings, the parent company of I Can Has Cheezburger? and Failblog.org on crowd sourcing, Dave Moyer of the and on podcasting production, Steve Souders formerly of Google and the author of High Performance Web Sites on site optimization, Ann Oyama, aka SuperAnn, a freelance WordPress developer and host of BayAnime.com on WordPress Theme code, functions, and customization, just to name a few of the awesome speakers.

People came from all around the world including England, Japan, China, Spain, France, Canada, Mexico, and from all over the United States including , the first recipient of a permanent WordPress logo tattoo, surprised to be highlighted in State of the Word presentation. [Read more…]

WordPress News: BuddyPress News, WordPress 2.8 News, WordCamp Toronto & Virginia, WordPress.tv Feeds, and More

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WordPress 2.8 News: The final stages of development, testing, and patching is underway for the release of WordPress 2.8. The latest news on the next version of WordPress includes: [Read more…]

WordPress News: WordPressMU Updated, WordPress 2.8 News, WP.com, WordPress Events

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Some Administration Panel Redesigns in WordPress 2.8: While WordPress committed to no changes in the WordPress Administration Panels interface, there will be a few minor tweaks. In “Design Tweaks: Who’s In? (An idea in three acts),” Jane Wells explains that your help is wanted to redesign the header area of the interface. UX and design guidelines have been posted and you are welcome to have your input until Tuesday, April 27, 2009. The submissions will be offered for voting for only one day due to the pressure to get WordPress 2.8 released.

WordPress 2.8 News: The final stages of development, testing, and patching is underway for the release of WordPress 2.8. The latest news on the next version of WordPress includes: [Read more…]

WordPress News: WordPress Wins at Irish Blogger Awards, WordPress Events Everywhere, WordPress for PowerPoint, Flash Security Issue, Feedburner Deadline

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March is WordPress month with more WordCamps and WordPress Meetups than ever. Will April beat it? Lester Chan makes a WordPress PowerPoint Template for presentations. WordPress wins the Best Irish Blogs Awards. FeedBurner transfer deadline is this weekend. Adobe Flash security vulnerability found, impacting many Plugins and WordPress blogs. And a lot more WordPress news coming your way.

WordPress News

The Best Bloggers in Ireland Use WordPress: Donncha O’Caoimh attended the Best Irish Blogs awards and reports that WordPress powers the best Irish blogs. Cathal Garvey created a comparison chart that found and represented 66% of the nominees, followed by Blogspot, then Movable Type. Has another country done similar comparisons?

WordPress PowerPoint Presentation Template: In anticipation of presenting a WordPress program at Blogout’09 in Singapore, Lester Chan went looking for a WordPress style template for Powerpoint. He couldn’t find one. So he created the WordPress PowerPoint Template that uses the official WordPress Logos and Graphics and looks very WordPress 2.7. He offers it free for anyone else searching as he did. Thanks, Lester! [Read more…]

WordPress News: Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searchable, iPhone App Tested, and More

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Can you spot a WordPress blog? Are you sure? WordPress 2.7.1 released. Improvements on the WordPress Plugin Directory search functions. Help for those transferring from LiveJournal to WordPress.com, and WordPress in the future. WordPress 2.8 development on track. WordPress iPhone app in testing for next release. WordPress.com gets a new data center. More WordPress Tattoo news. WordCamps in Miami and India this weekend, Denver next. Singapore starts its first blogger meetup, including WordPress fans. WordPress jobs, and tips for WordPress Plugin and Theme authors.

WordPress News

WordPress 2.7.1 Released: WordPress 2.7.1, a maintenance release, is out. If you are using WordPress 2.7, take advantage of the automatic built-in upgrade. If you are not, then consider upgrading to WordPress 2.7. Sixty-five files were modified with 68 bug and feature fixes and improvements, and I covered more details about the release on my blog.

Improvements in the WordPress Plugin Directory: At long last, the WordPress Plugin Directory now has a new and improved search function using Sphinx open source SQL full-text search engine to help you find the Plugins you need in the directory from the site as well as the WordPress Plugins panel.

Improved LiveJournal Migration: For those looking to migrate from LiveJournal to , there is now an even easier LiveJournal migration process that the WordPress.com team has come up with to help the ever increasing number of people moving to WordPress.com from one of the oldest blogging platforms in the world. The new technique is a step by step approach that improves the importing from importing by the month without comments to now include comments, handle “friends only” posts, private posts, improvements in tagging, link back to LiveJournal blogs, and connection to the LiveJournal API to download all posts and comments in one pass. One LiveJournal users helped test the importer which handled over 3,700 posts and nearly 200,000 comments. The new importer will be included in the next major release of the full version of WordPress. [Read more…]

WordPress News: WordPress 2.7.1, WordPress Tattoo, BuddyPress, WordPressMU Gets Plugins, Plugin Book, and More

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WordPress 2.7.1 is out. The first ever permanent tattoo of the WordPress logo is embedded. BuddyPress helps change how WordPressMU handles Plugins. New WordPress Plugin development book due soon. WordCamp Germany this weekend, with Miami and Denver coming up. New insights into WordPress 2.8 under the hood. And more from WordPress.tv and WordPress fan blogs.

WordPress News

WordPress 2.7.1 Released: WordPress 2.7.1, a maintenance release, is out. If you are using WordPress 2.7, take advantage of the automatic built-in upgrade. If you are not, then consider upgrading to WordPress 2.7. Sixty-five files were modified with 68 bug and feature fixes and improvements, and I covered more details about the release on my blog.

Ed Morita Final WordPress tattooPermanent WordPress Tattoo: in Hawaii is the first to put a permanent tattoo of the WordPress logo on his body. In January, he invited readers and WordPress fans to tell him where to place the tattoo and the wrist was the most popular response. I covered the event live on my blog, on the WordCast podcast, on Twitter (@lorelleonwp and @NctrnlBst), and it was picked up by many, including Mashable. In Ed’s story about the tattoo, he explains that it is meant to represent what it would look like if his skin was torn off to reveal a circuit board underneath with the WordPress logo. There has been much debate over whether or not the logo is the “right” one, and Matt Mullenweg confirms that it is the correct logo. The news has prompted another person on Twitter to hold an auction to get a tattoo, and several news agencies have contacted Ed Morita to cover the story. [Read more…]

WordPress News: Release Week News, WordPress 2.7.1, BuddyPress, WordPress MU, and More Releases

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It’s Release Week. WordPress 2.7.1 Beta 1 released for testing. WordPressMU updated. BuddyPress Beta 2 released. WP Scanner beta released. WordPress.com releases January stats. Akismet updated and improved. WordCamp.tv releases more WordCamp videos from last year. Scott Wallick releases his site and the Sandbox WordPress Theme for sale. Kym Huynh of WordCast released from hospital, and does blogging with WordPress suck?

WordPress News

WordPress 2.7.1 Beta 1 Released: The first WordPress 2.7.1 Beta has been released and is undergoing testing. It is a maintenance release with 66 tickets fixed. Expect the final release within the next week or so.

WordPressMU Update Released: WordPressMU 2.7 is now available, the multi-user version of WordPress than runs and other blog networks. This new version includes the latest version of WordPress and a lot of bug fixes. It also includes the exciting announcement that Viper007bond’s admin bar has been added to the core to make it even easier to use.

BuddyPress News: BuddyPress 1.0 Beta 2 has been released and all components and Themes are available for download. Hundreds of fixes have been patched and fixed since the first beta and now will synch up with WordPressMU releases for the eagerly anticipated WordPressMU social media and networking WordPress Theme and Plugins.

Akismet Reports CAPTCHAs are dead: In “Akismet: Make Commenting Easy,” Akismet reports that CAPTCHAs are now officially dead and useless, and cite a report by ZDNet that a quarter of a million CAPTCHAs are easily broken by bot and human spammers every day. Modern comment spam fighting tools, like Akismet and Defensio, do the job without interferring in the interaction between a reader and their comment. [Read more…]

WordPress News: Logogate, WordCamps Everywhere, WordPress.tv, BuddyPress, WordPressMU, WordPress Plugin Podcast, and More

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WordPress Logogate continues. New WordCamps announced worldwide. WordPress.tv is changing WordPress tutorials and resources. WordPressMU updated. BuddyPress released any day. Super Cache new version released. Matt featured in USAToday. Did you hug a WordPress Plugin developer recently? New podcast on WordPress Plugins announced. And tons more WordPress news, tips, techniques, Plugins, and Themes.

WordPress News

WordPress Logogate: Among Matt’s new year’s resolutions is to get the WordPress Community using the correct WordPress logo. He’s created a comparison image to convince everyone to use the right logo, but that wasn’t enough. Many thought the difference between the two was the color when it’s reallyl the font. So he’s created a new specific version to help you understand:

WordPress Correct font logo example

Color it whatever you want, but use the right base to start with. The font counts. When playing with the WordPress logo, start with the Official WordPress logos.

Also, WordPress is spelled WordPress not WordPress. To make this part of his new year’s resolutions come true, he’s written a script to force WordPress into WordPress across all of the 5 million plus blogs on . Instant gratification.

Our Matt: Our favorite blogger and WordPress fanboy is making it big. In a recent USAToday article on WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg, they talk to some of the big wigs behind WordPress love and even interview his mother to get a peek at the roots of WordPress magic. [Read more…]