They say that the third time’s the charm, but I don’t know if I would apply that to the third WordCamp conference in San Francisco that took place today. While it may partially have been that maybe I’ve gotten a little bit used to it, now that I’ve been there a few times, a lot of changes happened this year that I didn’t really think were that much for the better. And so my analysis and recap of this year’s WordPress event begins…
Continue reading »

Tags: 2008, Automattic, BarCAmp, Blogging, conference, event, rant, San Francisco, WordCamp, WordPress

I’m at WordCamp 2008 today in San Francisco, and I’m looking forward to having an interesting but relaxing time. I have no video camera this year and no podcast interviews that I’m going to be doing today, which means that this year I actually plan to enjoy the conference.

I’m volunteering at the T-shirt counter today until 11:00, after which I’ll be free to go out an enjoy the conference. I’ll also be taking pictures and putting them on my Flickr photostream today, so you can keep an eye there.

If you’re visiting my blog as a WordCamper, I hope you enjoy my blog and are interested in subscribing. I’m also interested in finding people interested in guest blogging on my blog in the near future, so if you would be interested, please leave a comment to this post and I’ll get in touch with you!

WordCampers last year may remember when one Dr. David Klein went around WordCamp taking pictures of people and then making caricatures of them. Well, this year, he’s doing something different; he’s getting a whole bunch of WordCamp bloggers to do little mini-games on their blog. I’m going to be doing one on this blog starting at 2:15 PM, lasting for about 15 minutes, and is exclusively for WordCamp visitors to participate in (and win a prize, possibly), so check back at 2:15 as defined by the handy clock on the top of my blog.

So now, on to WordCamp!

Tags: 2008, Blogging, conference, event, San Francisco, WordCamp, WordPress

Okay, it’s my turn to participate in the WordCamp Games, sponsored by one Dr. David Klein of San Diego Chiropractic. So, without further ado, here’s the game:

Come up with new words for “comment.”

Comment is turning into one of those somewhat overused words, not only on blogs, but on forums and many, many other places. This challenge is to come up with as many new words for “comment” as you can think of–the person with the most words that can be verified by dictionary.com and make some amount of sense (in other words, “asparagus” is not a word that would be much of a replacement for “comment”) will be the winner of this contest.

You have until 2:30 PM PDT (as defined by the handy-dandy little clock on the front page of my blog) to leave a comment here with your list of words, at which point the comments will be closed. I will post the winner here shortly thereafter once I have verified that all of their words qualify, and you’ll get instructions on how to claim your prize from Dr. David.

Note to DK: I’m providing five extra minutes since this game is in the middle of Matt’s State of the Word and is a little bit harder–sorry to keep you waiting. I’ll try to have the winner listed here by 2:40-2:45.

So what are you waiting for! Hie thee hence to the comments section and share your suggestions for what they should be called instead!

The winner: is Dr. David Klein, the only one who submitted anything before time ran out.

Tags: comments, game, San Francisco, WordCamp

Today I’m at the Social Media Camp taking place at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco. Admission here is free, so if you’re attending or want to drop by, feel free to do so! (Those of you that are here can feel free to say hi in the comments section.) My friend Daniel Brusilovsky will be giving a presentation here later today, which I’m here to see, and I’m also going to be taking notes on social media/social networking and how a certain non-profit organization that I volunteer for can take advantage of it.

Anyway, for the readers on my blog, expect a report on my experience here in the next day or so. And for everyone at Social Media Camp who have heeded my shameless plug(s), hello and thanks for visiting my blog!

Update: I’ll be doing a session on “The Art of Personal Blogging” at around 2:15 PM today in the second room.

Tags: BarCAmp, event, research, San Francisco, Social Media Camp, visitors

This is an interesting movement that is taking place today, where many residents and cities around the world, including my native San Francisco, is agreeing to turn the lights off for one hour starting tonight at 8 PM. It seems like an interesting movement. If you are able to, consider doing your part for the movement, and help conserve energy usage by turning your lights off for an hour tonight.

Tags: climate change, Earth Hour, global warming, movement, San Francisco, Video, YouTube

Well, I’m fresh back from my trip to Macworld Expo, courtesy of the tech group at my high school that I’m an “honorary member” of. (The “honorary” part means that I don’t actually do anything with them due to my busy schedule.) But yep, we got to go to Macworld as a field trip, meaning we got to legally miss all of our classes today to do so. Oh, I can just feel your jealousy rising.

The general consensus among us was that there was too much stuff for the three and half hours that we were there. (We finished getting all registered by 10:40 AM, and had to leave at 2:15 PM.) It didn’t help that there were two exhibit halls in separate buildings, a block apart from each other. Obviously not the ideal setup, but Moscone North was hosting the United Motorcoach Association of America or something like that. Wow. So, my schedule pretty much involved registering at Moscone West at about 10:20, then going through the West Exhibit Hall at 10:40-12:15, then getting lunch nearby until about 12:45, and then spending 12:45-2:15 in Moscone South. Unfortunately, I only got to see about half of Moscone South’s exhibit hall, which is very, very big.

However, this year, I spent most of my time talking with the smaller developers, which took up the majority of the West Hall and most of whom were together in the Developer Pavillion (aka “Tiny Town”) in South Hall, behind Apple’s humongous booth. I actually really enjoyed that, because in general, the smaller developers are much more approachable than these huge companies with the humongous booths, and they’re much more interesting. I actually got exposed to quite a few new apps that I’m going to have to check out (look at wallet, here comes the fire…). So although I obviously didn’t get to see everything I had hoped (the MacHeist, Micromat, and Microsoft booths were all on my to-do list which I didn’t get to), I still had a good time, a much less stressful time, and came back with some great goodies.

Included in my goodies was the official Macworld San Francisco T-shirt, this time a black T-shirt with blue and white lettering. I also got a WireTap Studio T-shirt from Ambrosia Software. WireTap Studio just looks so cool, so I’m really going to have to try it out. One of the companies actually was interested in doing a promotion with PreviewCast, and gave me his card, so there may be some interesting news coming from that soon.

Oh, and I got OmniFocus, the totally-awesome GTD application from the Omni Group for only $30. The regular list price is $80, and I got more than half off through a Macworld discount and a student discount. I’ll definitely be spending some time trying out OmniFocus and you can expect a detailed review here soon.

Don’t worry, you haven’t heard the last of my Macworld experiences yet, but I thought that I’d share just some of what I did at the exhibit hall today. One of these days, maybe I’ll actually be able to spend a full week at the conference.

P.S.: Sorry, but I didn’t get any pictures there this time. But I did get something else just as good! Hint hint…

Tags: Apple, developers, exhibits, Macs, Macworld, Moscone, Omni Group, OmniFocus, PreviewCast, recap, San Francisco, School, trip, WireTap Studio

Cross-posted from PreviewCast.com:

Hello everyone,

With Macworld coming up this week, I thought I would take an opportunity to share what we have planned for our super awesome exclusive special stand-on-your-head-while-eating-deep-fried-pickle-hearts-and-singing-a-Mozart-sonata-at-the-same-time practically-drop-dead PreviewCast coverage of Macworld 2008: Absolutely nothing!

That’s right, PreviewCast is doing absolutely nothing in terms of live coverage. We will have absolutely no audio, no video, no photos, no tweets, no holograms, no SuperPokes, absolutely nothing to give you an experience of what it’s like to be at Macworld San Francisco 2008. Why? Because the entire internet is already doing the SAME THING!!!

Just hop on Google or Upcoming and take a look! Numerous websites and podcasts are doing lots of stuff at Macworld, whether it be tours and interviews on the show floor, interviews after the keynote from celebrities whom have had a significant overdose of exposure to the patented reality distortion field, and so many podcasted special events that you could get lost just in the few blocks surrounding Moscone Center and enough to force me to give my entire life’s savings over to BART if I was to try to take care of all of them and try to produce something for PreviewCast.

So guess what? We are not doing anything special for Macworld 2008 until after the show is already over and the initial hype over whatever Steve plans to spit out of his mouth on Tuesday has calmed down. PreviewCast #049, to be recorded next weekend, will be when we give our take on the announcements.

I will indeed be spending at least a day sometime at the Macworld Exhibit Hall, but guess what I’m going to do there? You’ll never believe it, but I’m actually going to enjoy myself! I’m not taking a camera (one disappeared there last year, and I’m still taking the heat for that), I’m not taking a microphone (unless I get the urge to record myself singing folk tunes in front of the Apple booth), although I am taking my laptop just to enjoy some free wifi, which is hard to find nowadays. But yeah, by eliminating myself of the burden of responsibility of recording and capturing the Macworld experience, I will actually be able to enjoy the Macworld experience! And isn’t that just what the point of it all is?

If you are interested in some Macworld coverage for you to get the illusion of being there, might I recommend practically every other site on the internet.

Enjoy the keynote and the festivities. And don’t worry, I will still be doing a bit of Macworld coverage, albeit from a distance, on Webmacster87.info. Stay tuned next week for PreviewCast #049.
–Douglas Bell
Co-Host and Editor, PreviewCast
http://www.previewcast.com

Tags: 2008, announcements, coverage, internet, Macworld, Personal, plans, PreviewCast, products, San Francisco, Steve Jobs

Lorelle VanFossen presented an amazingly excellent session at WordCamp about connecting with your readers when you blog. This was an excellent conference which I’m so sorry that I missed, due to my stupidity of scheduling something at the same time as her session. Nevertheless, if you’re a blogger and you’re at all interested in really having your blog mean something to your readers, you HAVE to check out this session. I’m now rating it the best session of the whole weekend at WordCamp.
Continue reading »

Tags: Blogging, Connections, Lorelle VanFossen, Revver, San Francisco, Video, WordCamp, WordPress