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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!)

See what happens?

Things at work have been “hairy” to say the least. I haven’t been able to post about it without divulging sensitive information, so I’ve had to bitch and moan about it to Jim mainly. (God bless him for that!) One of my biggest complaints lately have been that I haven’t been doing the job I was hired to do — design. For the past year, year and a half, I’ve been doing mainly support and “web gopher” (meaning go to this page, update this, etc.). I haven’t been designing much. Sure, I do a little in my spare time, but lately that’s been pretty much nonexistent.

I did get pulled off for a quick side project a few weeks ago. A client’s husband (who happens to be one of the deans here at UAB) needed a “quick” website for a seminar he was giving in Egypt. I met with him and discussed his needs. He was very sweet and pretty much gave me full reign to do what I wanted with his site. (which was VERY refreshing to say the least!) In just a few hours time, I re-designed his site and moved all of the old content over and updated as needed. He was wow’d. The following week I received a very nice email of praise, cc’d to my bosses and the head of our division.

Sweet.

Upon reading the email, my boss chuckled and said, “See? See what happens when you leave a designer alone long enough to actually let her do her JOB?”

Needless to say, I wish I could work with him more than my actual clients, LOL! I mean, not only did I get a very nice “thanks” out of it, he also sent me several goodies from his organization, including a set of nice promotional pens.

Freebies = GOOD! :mrgreen:

WP Auto Updater … my thoughts

I had a chance this afternoon to sit and play around with the WordPress Automatic Upgrade (WPAU) plugin. I decided to upgrade my other problem-child second most troublesome blog, my recipe site (Now We’re Cookin’).

Overall, WPAU is impressive. It automates some of the most tedious parts of the upgrade process and I think it would be a very handy tool to recommend to those who aren’t as comfortable mucking around in WordPress’ inner guts.

I took a myriad of screenshots and uploaded them to my Zooomr account here.

Backing up

I haven’t had a chance to dump the backup files into a test site, but did take a peek to see how thorough the backup process was/is. The database backup looked pretty thorough, and prior to WPAU running the backup, you are given the option to backup just the tables necessary to WordPress or any (or all) of the accompanying tables (from plugins, bbPress, etc.). In the file backups however, I saw one thing that concerns me a little. The wp-content directory is skipped entirely. Anyone who’s upgraded a few times knows that you almost never overwrite anything in this directory. That said, I would always recommend backing it up just for shits and giggles.

Experience has taught me never to assume that my existing backups have everything in them.

I did notice that the entire root was backed up, not just the WordPress files, so that’s a good thing. I can’t tell you how many people I know who’ve accidentally deleted files that were critical to their site (outside of WP obviously) because they weren’t paying attention!

My personal gripes

I was under the impression that WPAU would keep any existing customized WordPress files and update if needed. On this particular site, I use a very customized quicktags.js. Granted, I have a million copies of these and it’s no big deal to just throw in a backup to overwrite the one that was installed in the upgrade process. But still … shouldn’t it have kept my customized file?

Also, and this is just my personal pet peevery, it copied the license.txt and readme.html into the site’s root directory. Personally, when I’m snooping around a site, those are two of the first 10 or so files/filetypes I would look for…

Not a big deal, like I said, just my personal peeve …

Last but not least, I didn’t see any changes to the wp-config.php file. Granted, I had already updated it prior to the upgrade, so maybe the app recognized that … I don’t know. However, that is something that concerns me considering that there have been several significant changes in the WP-Config during the last 2-3 version releases.

In closing

Like I said before, I like WPAU overall. I think it will come in very handy for several people I know, and I will most likely use it on my “non-custom” sites. That said, I think I would still feel more comfortable handling my more “customized” sites by hand.

A big thanks should go out to Keith Dsouza, the author of WordPress Automatic Upgrade. That’s a very highly complicated plugin — much more detailed and elaborate than any of my own hack-jobs!

New on the ‘To Do’

Jo tweeted me a few minutes ago with a head’s up on WordPress’ new Theme Directory.

YAY!!!!!

Seriously, this is definitely something to bump up on the ole ‘To Do’ list this weekend. Thanks, Jo!

And WordPress, if I could reach you, I’d hug you!

Never underestimate those Seabees

My pal Cookie recently informed me of a project he’s been involved with. Working with the TSA, he noticed that “many active Military personnel who had been dropped off at the Airport to catch their flights to whatever duty station they were bound for, sitting in the terminal for many long hours, sometimes overnight.” It became obvious pretty quickly that during these long waits or delays, our fine troops could not even get a bottle of water, soda, or a hot cup of coffee. And certainly there was also NO entertainment (TVs, etc.) with which they could occupy their time. The USO was soon contacted to see about getting a “Military Hospitality Center/Lounge” for military personnel to use in the airport. Unfortunately the USO was unable to help.

Well, never tell a Seabee that something CAN’T be done!

With the Seabee motto, “Can Do” in mind, Loren (Commandant Marine Corps League, Emerald City Detachment), Leroy (US Army Retired) and Cookie (Navy Seabee Veterans of America, Island X-19) set out to change this!

Cookie details so much in his post, so please continue to read about this amazing project there!

Thanks to material donations and assistance rendered from many organizations, the Military Hospitality Room is slated to open July 3rd. I’ve no doubt the Grand Opening will be well-received and GREATLY appreciated by those in the military who have to pass through the Syracuse, Hancock International Airport in Syracuse, NY!

Great job, Cookie! Keep us updated!!

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.

Memorial Day

I hadn’t intended to post today, but there was too much great content in my feeds this morning to ignore. As I do every other morning, I started first with the cartoons. I have always loved Chris Muir’s Day by Day strip. Today’s was both sweet (if you’ve been following the storyline) and appropriate:

Next, a short ‘n sweet message from my favorite outspoken goth. Cookie’s place had a nice shot and a short background blurb about watchfires and introduced us to a hero that everyone needs to know about.

Rachel Lucas introduced us to her grandfather, a WWII hero. 7.62mm Justice has a great post detailing several heroes and has some great stories to share. BlackFive’s post today is short ‘n sweet, but suggests something I’ve been encouraging others to do: If you see someone in uniform, or know they serve, thank them. If you see someone you know has served, thank them.

The Soldiers’ Angels blogs had several very excellent pieces today, but I wanted to highlight a couple of them: “Are we worthy of these warriors?” by Vickie Mauldin, Grand Forks Herald and “10 Things to Remember about Memorial Day” by David Holzel. They also shared some news about an upcoming event partnering with Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Move America Forward, Gathering of Eagles, and many others as well as a request to give some support to soldiers who are patients in Germany.

Last but certainly not least, Merri Musings reminds us of a great quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower: “History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”

I’m sure there’s tons more out there, but these are the ones that I thought needed some exposure (link love!). Feel free to add your own via the comments form below!

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!!!)

Our troops need us!

This morning I was reading the latest entries in the Troops Support LinkedIn group, and a post by Gail grabbed me:

On Sunday I flew from Houston to Seattle and when checking in at the airport I noticed a group of soldiers getting ready to depart as well. As always, I went up to them, introduced myself and thanked them for their service and bravery. While visiting with them, I inquired where they were headed and most replied they were on their way to Iraq. I wished them God speed and to stay safe and that we would be praying for their safety. During our discussion, many of them told me how disappointed they were that more Americans didn’t support them and what they are doing. I replied that I believe the ’silent majority’ does support and believe in what they are doing. They said they sure wished that more people showed it.

I am making a PLEA to everyone who reads this message to please talk to everyone you know to get involved with organizations like Operation Home Front and many other wonderful organizations like that to constantly show their support and appreciation. I am also asking all of you to write letters to the editors of your newspapers asking ALL Americans to get involved in showing their love and support for these brave troops who put their lives on the line to keep us free.

PLEASE, PLEASE don’t just read this message and hope someone else steps up to the plate. If enough of us get to the media, it may finally begin to have some results.

Thanks,
Gail

There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I think many people don’t realize how much our brave men and women need our support and love. They need to SEE us actively supporting them and proving that we do INDEED care! I see it too often, soldiers begging to be written, desperately wanting some form of contact from “back home” — a letter, a postcard, anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to let them know that we have NOT forgotten about them!

I am begging you … please consider joining an organization to show our troops that we love and support them. Soldiers’ Angels is the organization for whom I volunteer my efforts and spare time, they do a tremendous amount of good work. As mentioned in Gail’s post, so does Operation Home Front. There are so many people trying doing so much good, and let’s face it, they can ALL use some help!

Here are a list that I keep on the Bama Angels site for those looking for other organizations to help:

• Adopt-a-Chaplain
• America Supports You
• Any Soldier
• Blankets of Hope
• Books for Soldiers
• Cell Phones for Soldiers
• Fallen Patriot Fund
• Guardian Angels for Soldiers’ Pet
• Homes for Our Troops
• Iraqi Muscle
• Marine Executive Association
• Military Working Dog Adoptions
• Move America Forward
• Operation AC
• Operation Hero Miles
• Operation Home Front
• Operation Outreach
• Operation Purple
• Operation Top Knot
• Operation Uplink
• Operation: Birthday Cake
• Patriot Guard Riders
• Pinups for Vets
• Recruit Veterans
• SemperComm
• Soldiers’ Angels Veterans Support Team
• SOS: KIDS / Wings Of Hope
• The Home Front Cares
• Valour-IT
• Veteran’s Airlift Command
• Vets for Freedom
• Wandering Vets
• Wounded Warrior Project

Please PLEASE consider joining one of these organizations and doing your part to give our troops the support they so desperately need! There is so much that we can do … consider writing to your local papers, call or email the larger (tv/cable) media companies.

It’s time to show them what REAL SUPPORT is!!

We need more of these

(cross-posted to The Cotillion)

I was perusing The Birmingham News blog entries and ran across this one, featuring a local Marine vet who’s making a stand in honor of those who have served and sacrificed for our freedom.

Michael Rudulph, a three-tour Marine veteran, has taken a stand — vigilantly guarding the Eternal Flame of Freedom monument, a tribute to all war veterans, located in Linn Park here in Birmingham. The flame has been out for many years, and no one knows for certain how long or why. Sitting beside the monument with his own make-shift torch, a fire extinguisher, and some coffee, he has vowed not to leave his post except only to attend his classes at UAB and to sleep.

My hat’s off to you, Mr. Rudulph! It does my heart good to see our own local heroes stepping up and setting a good example for the rest of us. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I for one am tired of hearing about spoiled rotten starlets and pop stars hopping in and out of drug rehabilitation clinics. Give me more stories like Rudulph’s. Stop rewarding bad behavior with press and start rewarding those who are actually trying to make a difference in this world — even if it’s only starting with one monument in a small park in the South.

To Michael, thank you for your service and for raising awareness. To The Birmingham News, we need more of these!

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