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WordCamp Birmingham Notes

Note: I had intended to post this Monday night, but work has been crazy-busy this week and Jim’s having a bit of a site snafu, so spare time has been pretty much nonexistent. LOL!

We had a wonderful time at WordCamp Birmingham this past weekend. A big thanks to Andre Natta and the B’ham team for all of their hard work. I’m most definitely looking forward to next year’s. The date is already set (September 26-27, 2009), so be sure to mark your calendar! Matt Mullenweg is slated to be a keynote speaker, so it should be awesome!!

The Future of WordPress

The first speaker we saw Saturday morning was Dougal Campbell with “The Future of WordPress.” He briefly covered WordPress’ version history and various milestones over the last few years. Thinking back, I think I started off with either version 1.0 or 1.1. I remember the upgrade to 1.2 being pretty hard, but that was nothing like having to re-do my theme for 1.5, LOL!

Ahh, those were the days … :lol:

He then moved on to the upcoming and much anticipated version 2.7. It’s due sometime next month. According to Dougal, there will be:

• more backend UI re-design;
• upgraded API, so you can upgrade themes, browse and install plugins and themes, etc.;
• comment improvements (many of these are covered in great detail on Otto’s blog) such as:
  • threaded comments
  • paged comments
  • auto-close comments
  • replying to comments from the Admin menu (a HUGE plus!!!)
• sticky posts;
• “Quick Edit” inline editing via Ajax for posts;
• HTTP-only cookies, a security feature;
• a new HTTP request API for plugin developers, replacing the current request API (Snoopy, I think?);
• and many others …

He also went over some possible features for future versions of WordPress:

• APP Importer: for Movable Type, Type Pad, Blogger, …
• A new “default” theme, possibly based on Sandbox or something similar to it. This will be replacing the current Kubrick theme.

Some features that he thinks are likely for version 2.8 (taken from the Trac Tickets) include:

• better page managment: select page order, hide pages
• expanded template functions: users, comments, attachments

We can look forward to seeing more CMS features, more social networking features, better widget management. Perhaps even OpenID (that would be sweet).

Documentation was brought up and he stated that there has been a big push (internally) to get the functions (I’m assuming he means the Codex?) better documented, updated, etc.

SEO For WordPress

The next speaker was Donna Fontenot, who had some really good insight on SEO for beginners. You can view her slides here. It is also available on her website in HTML format.

She started with a very simple recommendation as a first step for blogging: think first, write later. This can apply to so many aspects, and I admit it’s one that I don’t practice enough. You should actually USE the phrases you want to rank well for in blog posts. For best results, use them in prominent places:

• Document Title
• Body Headings
• In posts

Another stickler subject: Blog Visibility. In covering the WordPress Settings, she states that you should always make sure to have the privacy option set so that your blog is visible to everyone, including search engines.

Moving on to Permalink structure, the optimal setting is /%category%/%postname%/. For most blogs it’s ok to be different though. Dates, which are useless for SEO, are useful for users and are most generally preferred. It’s best to make sure that %postname% in there somewhere.

She talked a bit about URL canonicalization. Blog owners must make a choice: www or no www. Whichever you choose, you must consistently use it everywhere:

• Linking to your site
• correspondence
• email and IM signatures

Donna then moved on to categories. This is another thing I am doing wrong, LOL! She says it’s best to keep them as top-level important concepts, as opposed to tagging. Me, I tag and categorize all willy-nilly. Guess I’ll have to work on that. :mrgreen:

One of the plugins she highly recommended was All-In-One SEO Pack. I’ve heard about this plugin from several different people and from what I understand, it takes all the guesswork out of SEO for your blog. Donna says that the default settings work well.

Another plugin mentioned is: Excerpt Editor. This one gives extra control over excerpts, autogenerates excerpts (but allows overriding), prevents duplicate content between excerpts and full post, replaces the_content() with the_excerpt(), and more…

She spent a bit of time on two other post elements:

• Post titles:
  • use H1 or H2
  • Ok to use other tags, but H1 or H2 are best (use whatever suits your theme)
• Post slugs:
  • these should contain only most important words
  • and you should strip out “stop” words like ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, etc. These dilute the value of other keywords in the slug (permalink)

Other topics covered were:

• Post Image Optimization
• Interlinking
• Encouraging Sharing/Linking
• Participating and Reciprocation

Donna’s presentation not only had a lot of good information, she also made recommendations as to customizations to themes and various plugins that could help improve the “SEO-ness” of your site. I highly recommend checking out her site. You’ll find a LOT of useful information there that she covered at WordCamp, and a lot more!

Merging your work life with your blog life

The next speaker was David Griner. His presentation was pretty comical, poking fun at himself (he’s not even a WordPress user *gasp* hehe) and his profession. While this wasn’t really one of the topics that first piqued my interest, it did have a lot of useful information for anyone whose ever wondered what it could take to make blogging a full-time job.

It’s not something I could do, but I admire anyone who does it!

Topics included:

• Pros of Freelancing
  • schedule your own time
  • stockpile blog posts in advance
  • decent extra pay
  • very minor level of celebrity
  • opportunities for guest editing/posting
  • work in your underwear
• Cons
  • most people suck at time management
  • you’ll starve
  • no benefits or security
  • can mess with your taxes
  • easy to lose steam
  • neighbors get tired of seeing you in your underwear
• Finding the right blog
  • you’re probably already reading it
  • who owns it?
  • how many writers?
  • Whats the output?
• Getting the gig
  • get to know the writers or editors
  • comment often under the same name
  • write response posts on your blog
  • if you like the site, help drive traffic there
• Asking for the job
  • no harm asking about openings
  • always write at least three sample posts that they could run that day
  • make sure your e-mail is colon-rupturing in its awesomeness
  • get across your enthusiasm for the blog
  • talk about how it has evolved
  • say why they need you
  • what is the blog missing?

You can see these and more in his slides here.

Break!

At this point, we broke for lunch. Jim and I didn’t go back for the late afternoon sessions. I was nursing a migraine and football would be on soon. (Hey, I’m a ‘Bama fan first and WP geek second! )

I went back Sunday for a couple of the sessions: Brett Bumeter’s “Windows Live Writer — Blogging with any Blogging Software Has Never Been Easier” and Mitch Canter’s “Making WordPress Dance.”

Brett’s presentation covered the Windows Live Writer application. It’s not really my cuppa, but would be a great interface for anyone intimidated by the web UI for most popular blogging software/services.

Mitch’s presentation covered several topics I had previously researched and I was impressed with the amount of helpful information he covered. He also had a great list of plugins that he recommended. I would like to see more of him next year, if he attends. You can find his slides here.

The Media

From watching the WordCamp Bham twitters, I can see that a photo pool is available on Flickr, as well as a handful of the presentation slides gathered on SlideShare. I also see that WordCamp Birmingham also made the local news. You deserve it guys, great work!

Good stuff. Can’t wait until next year.

(Updated to include slides links, thanks Don @ authorize.net!)

Fried pickle foolery

As a reward for helping him with his blog upgrade (read: snafu) last week, Jim took me out Saturday to my favorite restaurant, Cajun Steamer. I am absolutely enamored with their red beans and rice and my new favorite deep fried delicacy: fried pickles. I’ve tried those at several other places and IMO, nobody beats “the Steamer.” A close second would be the fried pickle spears at Porky’s Pride in Fultondale. (they have GREAT bbq!)

So yeah, I’m a fried pickle eating fool … maybe one of these days I’ll buy a deep fryer and start making my own. (I like ‘em spicy!)

Our internet has been doing going up and down for the last week or so, plus there’s been a lot of static on the line when we used the phone. This weekend we bought a new router (found that the old one was fine), several replacement splitters and panels for the phone connection in the living room (those were probably fine as well), replaced the phone line (well, that was probably needed), and finally found that when we unplugged the kitchen phone the static stopped and the internet connection seemed to stabilize.

Weird.

So with the internet connection back to somewhat normal, Jim was a happy camper and spent most of yesterday playing Conan. Me, I had a persistent headache — complete with nausea and dizziness, so I did a little cleaning, but spent most of the day lying in bed. Luckily, I don’t get these often. My migraine pain meds did little for the headache and because I was so nauseous, I didn’t eat (which usually just makes the headache worse). Ugh.

I seriously wouldn’t wish this upon anyone … except maybe the idiot neighbor who decided to let his dog yip for 6 freakin’ hours straight!

I don’t think I went to sleep until after 2 am this morning. Unfortunately the only things on tv at that hour are infomercials for anything from Proactiv acne cream to ‘magical’ body slimmers to Girls Gone Wild. Ugh. Lucky for me, Jim had just picked up a copy of last season’s The Closer dvd set, so I watched that instead.

So today I’m making a point to stay hopped up on caffeine just so I can stay awake. ;P

As much as I love working for UAB…

… I hate hate HATE their insurance! :evil:

In all fairness, they have been pretty easy to deal with except when it comes to getting my Axert refills. Honestly, I’m having to jump through hoops just to get what my doctor has prescribed for me!

In this regard alone, they are WORSE than Blue Cross!

Kickin’ weekend

Had a full weekend. Jessie’s karate school had a “Kick-a-thon” benefit for St. Jude’s early Saturday. She did pretty well for her first time. She made 300 kicks, but then had to drop out because she had gotten overheated and was about to be sick. (that room was SO HOT!) It’s a wonder nobody passed out. The winner was a little girl about Jessie’s age who had been taking karate since she could walk; she won with 3400 kicks.

That’s impressive, I don’t care who you are!

Afterwards, there was a potluck breakfast. We had a good time hanging out with the senseis and other parents. We left directly from there to head to Montgomery to see Jim’s mom and his brother’s family. The ride down was a bit of a pain — the out-of-town traffic was IMMENSE! Seriously, I haven’t seen traffic like that since Jim and I were stuck in the Hurricane Ivan evacuation.

Otherwise the ride down was nice. Jessie and I pointed out the state tags on cars that we passed and giggled at funny exit signs. There was one exit sign that was particularly funny (and not very work friendly, LOL!) … if Jim’s snapshot came out, I’ll share on here.

We went out to lunch at a nice Chinese place once we were down there and stopped by a farmer’s market on the way back. I LOVE going to places like that. Just smelling all the fresh fruit and veggies brings back memories. I told Jim’s mother, “This smells like home.” Or rather, it reminds me of Corner (the way it was when I was little).

Once we were back at the house, Jim’s mom showed me several art projects that she’s been working on. We sat and caught each other up on work and general family gossip. Jim helped my sister-in-law put together a plasma tv mount in the guest room. All in all, it was a very good time. We left early that evening because some pretty heavy storms were coming through that area. I had a horrible headache Saturday night because of it, and woke up with another yesterday.

I hated having to leave so soon, but we’ll be back down there in a couple of weeks. Jessie is staying down there this week and next week — though her mother is none too happy about it. She showed her ass a bit Saturday, especially when it came time for us to leave to head to Montgomery. She wouldn’t speak to any of us, and said not a word to Jessie. :roll:

One of these days, that woman is going to realize that the world does not revolve around HER.

So today it’s back to work. I’m waiting to call my insurance company to chew them out for delaying my migraine medicine’s refill AGAIN. They do this about every 6 months or so, and I’m getting pretty sick of it. They will be lucky if I don’t just reach through the phone and choke them! ??:

An update on things…

We are doing well. Saw the doctor and it appears that my aches and pains are not permanent. I’ve been feeling a lot better over the past couple of days, and Jessie’s bump on the head has all but disappeared.

My car is still incapacitated. Still sitting in my driveway. Still won’t lock properly. *sigh* Been dealing with several snags with the car insurance and rental companies, but things are finally starting to roll along.

Getting hit just before a holiday weekend sucks ass, don’tchaknow….

Should have a rental by tomorrow a.m. and hopefully someone will ride out to inspect the damages over the next couple of days. According to one of the adjusters, they’ve determined that it’s their liability and will be paying 100% on everything — which I knew all along, but they still have to be thorough and check out every little thing before starting the whole “we’ll pay for everything” process. (understandable, but aggravating … but what can ya do?)

I think I’ve replayed that accident at least a hundred times over and over in my mind. I know without a doubt that there was absolutely nothing in my control in this whole situation, but I can’t help obsessing over it. Luckily, we were in a large enough vehicle that we escaped with minimal shock and no permanent bodily harm.

That said, I can’t help thinking what would have happened if we were in Jim’s car … I seriously doubt his little Tiburon would’ve put up as much of a fight …

I know, I know … don’t dwell on it. (but that’s what I do!) This whole ordeal has been a real big PITA and a migraine-giver, but I can’t complain too much can I?

Funny thing: while sitting at the doctor’s office, received a call from the insurance company. It wasn’t a “good call” and shot my blood pressure up so high that they held me over and insisted on taking it again an hour later to ensure that it was just stress and not a real emergency. The fact that high blood pressure runs on my mother’s side of the family works against me there, and my doc “just wanted to be sure” that it hadn’t recently developed into a “real” problem considering I was sitting there already nursing a headache.

Yeah, better safe than sorry … and should’ve left the cell in the car. :lol:

I’m slowly catching up on emails and other business. I’ll most likely be back at work tomorrow. A big ‘Thanks!!’ goes out to everyone who’s called, emailed, etc. We appreciate your concern and support.

Busy weekend and belated ‘thanks’

I swear, I think our weekends are getting to be busier than our weekdays! ;P Friday was pretty hectic, and add the bad weather on top of that, it made for an interesting start to the weekend. Jessie’s karate test was Saturday — she’s now moved up from orange belt to a purple belt! Jim and I took pictures and filmed, so hopefully those will be up soon. We had a chance to talk to Jessie’s senseis for a bit, and both had nothing but good things to say about our little ray of sunshine. I noted that ever since beginning taking karate, she’s shown so much improvement … both in the dojo and outside of it!

Jessie left after the test with her mother. Jim and I went over to see my folks and saw my brother Jeremy and his wife Christy. They had Ryland with them, so I got to spend a little time with my favorite niece.

Isn’t she precious?

Stupidity knows no bounds

Today Jim and Jessie took me to brunch for Mother’s Day. I got a little aggravated earlier because I specifically told her mother that I was picking her up early and that we were going out to eat. Originally it was supposed to be breakfast … I pick Jessie up and find out that her mother had her EAT BREAKFAST right before I was to pick her up!

*beats head into wall repeatedly*

I swear, one of these days I’m bound to say something to this woman that I know I will regret, but that she also fully DESERVES.

So we waited a bit and went for ‘brunch’ … Jessie was hungry enough and Jim and I were starving! There was a slight ‘incident’ with a group that cut in line infront of us and another family. When I said something to one of the party members, she muttered something about us being ‘racists’ — the party members were black. :roll:

They moved on before I could say anything else, but I was fully ready to retort with, “It has nothing to do with race. The color of one’s skin does NOT exempt one from using common courtesy and manners!”

So I fumed a bit, but got over it. We were at Ryan’s and the food and service were great, which fully made up for the inconvenience before being seated. In their defense, it WAS packed, which made it a bit hard for the staff at the front to keep track of who should be where. However, that being said, I find it hard NOT to notice the general lack of manners by people I run across in public nowadays.

To most of these people, I am dying to say, “I *KNOW* your mother taught you better!”

A heart-felt and belated “Thanks!”

If all goes well, it looks like I’ll win this round in the Lunarpages’ WordPress theme design contest. I am completely overwhelmed by the response and surge in votes from family, friends, and extended community. I emailed a few close to me, and just about every one of them emailed their friends and family, and so on and so forth; and I posted on here and you each voted and responded in kind. (thank you!!) My Cotillion sisters rose to the occasion offering support and votes (thank you, girls! I love y’all!). Jim reached out to his guild and the guys have been very supportive with votes and feedback. (thank you!!) And last but certainly not least, the gargantuan legion of members over at the Soldiers’ Angels forums were a tremendous help in attaining and keeping the lead. (thank you very very much, Angels!!!)

Magnolia Fest and pictures!

This weekend flew by WAY too fast. Friday I had a killer headache, plus rain came in later that evening so we didn’t get to setup our booth until Saturday morning. This turned out to be a real blessing in disguise as the tents that WERE setup Friday night were blown everywhere and the ones still standing had a ton of water on/in them! :shock:

It didn’t take near as long as I thought to set everything up Saturday morning, but I printed too few Soldiers’ Angels info cards to hand out. I had plenty of fliers and a handful of people stopped to look at the binder of pictures and PR materials, but the cards went out the fastest and in greater numbers. I can understand why, they’re small and can easily fit in a pocket rather than having to fold up (the much larger fliers).

Jessie participated in the demonstration put on by her karate school. She looked very fierce and determined, and performed really well! Jim’s mother came up from Montgomery with our niece and nephews, so it was great seeing them. (hehe, the boys used Jim as exercise equipment, so that was pretty funny) I also got to meet and spend a little time with Elaine and her husband from Painted Personalities.

As I’m typing this post, the pictures of the Alabama A-Day Game and this weekend’s Magnolia Festival are being uploaded to my Zooomr account. They seemed to have been having problems earlier this morning, but everything looks pretty good now for the most part (outside of the few hiccups that I have had to re-upload).

Mother of all headaches

I had chosen to work from home yesterday, and now I’m glad that I did. There were a few things around the house that *had* to be done, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself because I had gotten up in enough time to get an early start on things. At 7:30 I opened my work email and worked on a few things there. I made breakfast and piddled around in the kitchen a little bit and was feeling pretty good.

Then it hit me … the Mother of All Headaches.

About 10 I started feeling it, the crushing pain on the back of my neck and my temples. Then my eyes started throbbing. I thought, “No big deal, I’ll take an Axert and a hot shower and that’ll help.”

It only got worse from there.

I started feeling nauseous. I mean REALLY nauseous — we’re talking Lamaze-type breathing just to try to keep volatile projectile puking my insides out nausea.

It didn’t work.

I was unable to hold food down pretty much all day. I drank some juice. That didn’t work either. I had to ride out and pick up Jessie’s new glasses, so I did that and thought that picking up one of my favorite meals might help perk me up. I got home, took another Axert and a Sudafed, and sat my happy butt down to eat some Krystals chiks. (but I held off on the hotsauce this time, dont’chaknow!)

Bad idea … WTF was I thinking?!

I had about 2 fries and those “came back to visit.” By this point it’s 2:30, my head feels like it’s in the Vice Grips from Hell, my heart is racing wildly, I’m afraid to take anything else, and I’m calling my doctor’s office to see if she can work me in. The receptionist asked me if it was an emergency. I said, “Well, if she can’t see me soon, I’m going to the ER right now!” She put me on hold for a moment and asked me if I could come in at 3. Jessie’s school is a few minutes from my doctor’s office and I knew I could pick her up and swing by there.

I swear sometimes I think I need one of those medical alert bracelets or something when I have one of these “Uber Mega Headaches from Hades”!

Poor little Jessie, she is the absolute SWEETEST person on the face of this earth — when she wants to be. ;P And yesterday, she took one look at me and said, “You’re paler than you usually are. Are those my new glasses? Cool!”

LOL.

She patiently sat with me in the waiting room while I waited for my name to be called, and talked to me the whole time to keep my mind “off being sick.” (Isn’t that adorable?) I think she looked at nearly every magazine in the room and took care in pointing out everything to me. When I turned away from a food advertisement, she asked what was wrong. I explained that I was trying hard to concentrate on not throwing up, so food didn’t interest me right then. She’s quiet for a moment then says, “Oh. Well food interests me a LOT. I’m hungry!”

That’s my girl.

Jim had texted me to tell me he was leaving work and should he meet me there. I was told by one of the nurses that it would be best if someone came to pick me up when we were done, so I told him to “come on.” We had been called into a room and sat down with my doctor’s nurse. I explained what was going on and what all I had taken up to that point (and what I think came back up). Jim comes in right before the doctor shows up, so he gets to sit in there with us too. (much to Jessie’s delight!)

I explained to her what all happened and what I had taken. She takes my blood pressure and my pulse (by this time it was down closer to normal). She runs several tests and determines that it wasn’t flu or anything, just a really bad migraine.

I think I would have much rather had the flu by that point! ;P

She asks me if I want a shot to ease my pain and nausea. I agreed, and while they’re being prepared, we’re told that I’m not to drive for the rest of the day/night. Jim looks at me and asks about my car.

At that point, I was ready to give it away … gimme the damned shot!! :mad:

I told him that I would leave it there and pick it up the next day (today). He didn’t like that idea and voiced his concerns. The doctor looks at me and then at him and says, “She cannot drive if she gets this shot.”

I looked at Jim and said, “I am GETTING this shot!” We had to sign some sort of release form stating that he was driving me and would not let me drive yesterday or last night.

So I get a shot of Nubain for the migraine and a shot of Fenergan for the nausea. The migraine went away within an hour, but my nausea mostly subsided. It was never really gone until this morning when I got up.

I’m feeling much better today, but God help me, I don’t ever want to go through one that strong again!

SharePoint lessons I have learned …

I have lately taken it upon myself to do some SharePoint branding for one of our SharePoint servers here at work. I swear, I have spent the better part of 3 days just cleaning up HTML code alone! Unfortunately SharePoint uses a lot of attributes that are proprietary to Microsoft, so no chance of it ever validating any time soon.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned recently:

• Link bars are pretty unforgiving if you screw with their code, better use the GUI in SharePoint Designer to make any changes.
• If the site might need to be updated regularly, the Content Editor Web Part is your friend! (i.e. pass it off to someone else to maintain!)
• It’s always a good idea to test out a template first for bugs first before letting anyone else know you’re almost done — or where it’s located.
• The command line is your friend! (Actually, I knew this already, but in-dept documentation for SP commands were a little scarce until I found this reference)
• If custom controls and/or code is just not possible within the SharePoint realm, the Page Viewer Web Part is your friend! (As much as I despise using frames of any kind, this wp has saved my tail a time or two!)
• Your site’s content could be the best thing since sliced bread or a splog’s “cheap hotel Las Vegas” surf cache. It doesn’t mean squat if your site design looks like ass. (In other words, never EVER use the default SharePoint templates!)

Hopefully I’ll have more to add to this list later. For now, my head is killing me but my bosses are very happy with what I’ve gotten done so far. I think I’m going to ask for permission to cut out a little early today … it is Valentine’s Day after all!

What lessons are we teaching our children?

Yesterday, Jim and I spent a good part of the afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese — better known as “Hell on Earth for adults.” My nephew, David, was celebrating his 5th birthday. I managed to snap off a few shots with my cell, or rather I tried. (it’s hard to snap still shots of sugared up kids, LOL!)

Zooomr seems to be “mostly up” and I was able to upload them and create a photo set:

Isn’t Jessie charming?

Anyone who has ever visited one of these establishments can attest that it could be best summed up as “kiddie chaos.” It’s loud, there’s always bright/flashing lights, and add kids running wild all over the place: et voila, instant migraine! Ugh. So yeah, yesterday was hell. Honestly though, what really struck me most was not the aforementioned mayhem, it was the over all lack of manners and common courtesy that I observed. Not only did I witness children of all ages running amok as if they were raised by wolves, but also adults who behaved this way.

For example, Jessie came to me and told me that some kids pushed her away when she was trying to play one of the basketball games. I followed her to where she had been playing. There were two kids who were still playing (apparently using Jessie’s tokens). I asked one of them if that was their game (meaning did they put in tokens to play), he said he didn’t know he was just watching his sister. The game ended and they moved to the side. Jessie stepped up and put in a token and started to play. The little girl pushed her away and grabbed the basketball from her hands. I took it from her and told her that it was my daughter’s token and therefore it was her turn. She bared her teeth at me and made the meanest face she could and said, “Mine!” I told her “No. It’s our turn now.” Well, that girl SCREAMED her little head off, which of course caused her mother to come running. I explained what had happened and told her that her daughter was shoving my child and kept stealing her tokens and trying to take over her games. Her mother yelled at me saying that I had “no right” to deny her daughter to “do whatever she wants.” She had the gall to tell me that she didn’t believe me (or any of the other parents standing around who witnessed this!) and that I should be ashamed of myself for picking on her poor little girl, and causing her “grief and emotional trauma”. :roll:

Oh give me a fucking break. Do me a favor, lady. How about you teach your kids some manners and common courtesy?

I know I can’t be the only one who’s noticing this disturbing trend and is concerned by it. I was reading an article in the Selma Times-Journal Friday talking about children’s behavior and the increase in bad behavior seen in area schools:

Parents have a responsibility to teach their children to behave themselves from the moment those children are born. Children do not learn manners by osmosis, although little ones do imitate their parents or other adults they are around.

I think what worries me most is that the parents of these kids either don’t know or don’t care about the harm they are ultimately causing.

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