Refresh Denver (Round Table)

Tonight’s jQuery discussion was postponed since Mike Hostetler, the speaker, was at the hospital welcoming a new baby into the world. Congrats, Mike.

Instead, Matthew and Chip, kicked off a round table discussion to make good use of the time. It was a chance to meet everyone in attendance as well as forum for discussing new ideas and ways of improving the Refresh Denver experience. Some of the topics discussed were:

• Venue - The Hive, while handy, is too small for the group. We need a space sponsored by a local business that is willing to accommodate 30+ people, a projector, and WiFi.
• Location - Should the meetings be held in central Denver or to the North, South, etc? It was a mixed vote. The key is to be near an area where food and beverage are within reach for hanging out and socializing after each event. Very important, you know.
• One Point of Origin - Do we use the WordPress site, the Google Group, or a mix of both (not to mention the Upcoming and Twitter sites).
• Monthly Topics - Matthew/Chip suggested that there be a revolving topic discussion: technology, design, business. Each month would get one of the three in a repeating cycle. It should make for a well rounded experience, not to mention some mingling between business folk/entrepreneurs, designers, and developers.

One thing that I found interesting from listening and talking to others (granted there is wide range of talents and ages in attendance) is what appears to be a lack of syndicated feed usage. People either bookmark a web site or use e-mail but not a feed reader as much. Maybe my perception is skewed but there is a clear distinction between these forms of communication and a huge benefit if used wisely.

Tags: Refresh Denver

Refresh Denver (Adobe AIR)

Attended another Refresh Denver gathering tonight. This time it was held at The Hive which is near REI in downtown Denver in a basement. The following are a few shots snapped from the iPhone:

(click to view)

I was a little late getting to the party as traffic was heavy and the place itself was a bit of a treasure hunt. Greg Owen from Effective UI was the speaker. He was quite knowledgable about the Adobe AIR platform but I can’t say that I learned a lot from the presentation. I think I was hoping to see real-time coding splendor from within the Flex Builder IDE. Oh, well. Chip’s demo of Map My Pix is worth checking out. Chip demonstrated with Map My Pix that a user can drag and drop photos onto a map pulling timestamp and location information from the EXIF data found in images (although I’m not positive how the location information is captured as I write this).

After the meeting I got a chance to talk to Mike Hostetler from Crowd Favorite and ate dinner with Scott Balay from Triple Jack Poker and Heather Morgan from LaunchPad Interactive at Protos Pizza (which is on the first floor of the same building as The Hive).

It is really nice to see the Refresh Denver group growing. The Hive was packed and everyone is enthused and curious about technology. For me, this is a welcome change. Something I’ve been trying to find for some time now.

For additional information, check out Chip’s wrap-up notes.

Tags: Adobe AIR, Refresh Denver

Refresh Denver (Microformats)

Just got back from attending a Refresh Denver meeting held at the Illegal Grounds Coffee House. Met some interesting people (mostly web developers) who live in the Denver area. I was the only radical that came from Colorado Springs. Here are a few quick notes that I captured from the meeting:

• Technology: Microformats
• Speaker: Scott Reynen
• Related Technologies: RDF, OWL, GRDDL.
• The W3C is not necessarily in sync with Microformats.
• Operator - A Firefox plug-in that supports microformats.
• HTML 4.0 supports microformats.
• The WordPress Sandbox Theme uses microformats.
• NetNewsWire - A feed reader for the Mac that supports microformats.

It was a learning experience for me and I really enjoyed meeting everyone that attended. Would have liked to have spent more time with everyone and that might be possible in the future. It sounds like this type of event just got off the ground during May of this year (for Denver that is). I am looking forward to more events like this and would even be up for hosting something like this in the Colorado Springs area. If anyone is interested just leave a comment, otherwise try to attend the next Refresh Denver meeting.

Tags: Microformats, Refresh Denver

WordCamp - Day 6 (Conference)

Introduction

Today was the second and last of the WordCamp conference. The following are my notes from the day.

10am - HyperDB and High Performance WordPress

Speakers: Barry Abrahamson and Matt Mullenweg

Interesting WordPress statistics. Best if you check out the slideshow.

10:45am - Blogs at the New York Times

Speaker: Jeremy Zilar

This was a spur of the moment presentation. He spoke about how they are using WordPress to power The New York Times. Check out their theme layout. Very cool!

A few blog essentials were discussed:

• About Page - Every blog should have one and it should describe the purpose and goal of the blog.
• Blogroll - I do not like this name as I call mine “Links of Interest” but this is where you link to the favorite sites you follow and subscribe to so that others can tune in.
• Posts - Well, you do not have much of a blog without them.
• Blog Title - Should be short, catchy, and to the point.

11am - Designing Massively Multiplayer Social Systems

Speaker: Rashmi Sinha, Ph.D.

She is a founder of SlideShare which is definitely something worth checking out. She spoke of first and second generation social networks and their evolution. Check out her slides. I also recommend watching her Perils of Popularity slideshow.

12pm - BBQ Lunch

Good but Joe’s BBQ is better!

1:15pm - Musical Interlude by Andy Skelton

Entertaining. Unfortunately, he had to sing about my accidental killing of rabbits near the Natural Bridges National Monument. Hey, you try driving in the evening and see how many you can avoid as they throw themselves at your tire(s)!

John Pozadzides has captured Andy Skelton’s performance if you want watch it.

1:30pm - Past, Present, and Future of Web Publishing

Speaker: Dave Winer

It is a shame that only an hour was given to Dave to speak. He had a sheet of topics to discuss and only covered a small portion. He spoke of the following:

• OPML Import/Export - All social software should have OMPL import and export capability.
• Future Safe Archives - We need to solve the problem of using technology of today in generations to come. It should be possible to view data stored today millions of years from now without having to know how to configure and manipulate the machinery and software in use today. For example, can you still read a 5.25” floppy disk on your computer?
• Data Portability - Data should be portable and accessible in as many forms as possible.

2:30pm - Usability Analysis

Speaker: Liz Danzico, Happy Cog

Liz has been working with the Automatic team to improve the WordPress usability experience. Most of her work will not be realized until the release of WordPress 2.4 but what is planned looks great. She spoke of the following:

• Desire Lines - When developers/designers create user interfaces they design with one idea in mind but in actuality users might use the software in an entirely different purpose or find shortcuts to getting things done faster. It is these shortcuts that are known as “desire lines”. When designing software, it is good to think of what desire lines are and build them in. Easiest way to do this is to be the user of your own software.
• Object Oriented Design - Think of design in terms of objects. I like this approach, being an object oriented developer. Examples of excellent object oriented design would be: Tumblr and the iPhone.

3:30pm - State of the Word

Speaker: Matt Mullenweg

He spoke of the following:

• bbPress - Bulletin board software that supports themes and plugins.
• BackPress - I did not take very good notes on this for some reason (maybe I thought I could link to it) but it has a user system, supports HyperDB, and supports script loading.
• WPCP - Work is being done on a WordPress Caching Proxy for improving WordPress speed and performance. Sounds interesting for high volume sites.
• WordPress 2.3 - Will have plugin update notification, tags (sweet!), and improved draft/pending post/page writing support.
• Blicki - I have been searching for a plugin that would allow one to add Wiki capabilities to WordPress and now I have found it.
• Windows Live Writer - Need to study this more. It’s been on my “ToDo” list but it sounds like this is a great offline application used to publish to WordPress as it supports most, if not all, WordPress API.

4:30pm - Developer Duke-out

Speakers: Matt Mullenweg, Michael Adams, Ryan Boren, Mark Jaquith, and Andy Skelton

Entertaining but was not able to stay for all of it as I had to hit the road. I need to get more involved with WordPress development. Baby steps first, starting with this web site.

Tags: WordPress

WordCamp - Day 5 (Conference)

Introduction

Today was the first day of the WordCamp conference. The following are my notes from the day.

Breakfast

Stopped for chai and scones at the Kape on 16th Street between Sanchez and Church. Serves Filipino cuisine and a great atmosphere. WiFi access is free. Check it out if you are ever in San Francisco and want something a little more quaint off Market Street.

10am - Podcasting

Speaker: Dan Kuykendall (author of PodPress)

I have been playing with Podpress off and on for some time now but am currently not using it on this site. This is about to change. Dan’s talk was mostly about showcasing Podpress, what it can do, and where it is headed. I like the fact that it supports not only audio but video. He mentioned that while YouTube video support is not there yet he is working on it. Sweet plugin.

The hardware/software that Dan is using for his podcasting setup is:

• MAudio Mobile
• AKG Perception 100
• Audacity (but Garage Band on the Mac is better).

11am - Blogs vs. Journalism

Speakers: John C. Dvorak and Om Malik

Always entertaining to hear John speak. I liked the fact that he supports and embraces blogging. A forward thinker that others in his field should aspire to.

12pm - Subway Sandwich Lunch

Curbed the hunger.

1pm - Kicking Ass Content Connections

Speaker: Lorelle VanFossen

Interesting lady. Energetic, boisterous, and strange but also friendly. I got a chance to chat with her later while having drinks with the rest of the WordCamp crew. I thanked her for the work she does on her site as I am an avid reader. Here are a few notes:

• Write something new.
• Have a fresh perspective.
• Never fail to stop asking “why”. Question everything.
• Think before writing/publishing. Try not to be the first but absorb and digest the information first.
• Blog for you first.
• Be a mirror for others. Once you find your community, they will understand and relate to you.
• Blogging is like archeology. The work that we have done and will do will be a wealth of information for future generations to use. This is something we have never had before and it feels good being part of it.
• Do not always complete a thought. Your audience is smart, let them fill in the blanks.
• As bloggers, it is our duty to comment back on other peoples blogs and keep the conversation going.
• Write timeless posts.
• Push yourself and go for extremes. Good advice for anything you do.
• Do not be an island, be part of the community.
• Do not be afraid to fail as failure is the pathway to success.

Those are my notes but you can watch the video for yourself.

2pm - Blog Monetization

Speaker: Jeremy Wright, b5media

Not sure I learned anything outside of what I already new. His lecture was mostly a panel discussion where he brought up three people from the audience and moderated. The different types of WordPress expriences by the people on the panel was interesting but not sure if this type of information was relative to the topic.

Nice guy though. Managed to survive Dr. Pepper shots with him later in the evening.

3pm - Getting Involved with WordPress

Speakers: Lloyd Budd (WordPress Quality Assurance) and Mark Jaquith (WordPress Development)

Nothing out of the ordinary here as they spoke about the following (much of which can be grokked from the WordPress site):

• Bug Tracking: trac.wordpress.org.
• Documentation: codex.wordpress.org.
• Source Code: Use svn co http://svn.automatic.com/wordpress.
• Development Mail List: lists.automatic.com.
• Development Instant Chat: Use #wordpress on freenote.

4pm - Designing the Obvious

Speaker: Robert Hoekman, Jr.

Apparently Matt really liked his book of the same name. I plan to check it out despite I thought the lecture was the worst of the day. I guess, in the last couple hours before Robert’s lecture, he decided to through his slides and improvise. Bad move, dude. Should have stuck to the slides.

Still, here are a few notes:

• Web site speed matters if you want to keep users.
• Surface feed syndication on your site and make sure it is understood. Use graphics or graphical documentation that illustrates the point clearly.
• Show the most popular posts.
• Show related posts.
• Show recently viewed posts.

5pm - Whitehat SEO tips for Bloggers

Speaker: Matt Cutts, Google.

This was the best speaker of the day despite being ill prepared. Really enjoyed listening to him talk and what he had to offer. Details of Matt’s talk can be found on his site. Here are a few of my notes:

• ALT Tags - Use them. They are not only good for when images do not load but for those who are blind.
• Use post creation dates as they are good for giving the reader a sense of date and time as well as chronological order.
• Be wary of URL address usage as it can screw up your search results. Choose one format and stick with it. For example, use www.aeonscope.net or aeonscope.net but not both.
• Ad Sense - Try thinking about using the following tags in your posts to control Google Ads for a specific post rather than the entire web site (which is what you get by default):
  

7:30pm - Lucky 13 Bar

Open bar and with the WordCamp crew and attendees. Had a lot of fun meeting people.

Related Notes

Here are few related notes from the day starting with a few of the people I met during the day:

• Crystal R. Williams - She is a slave to coffee.
• Kari Unebasami - This is not her main site. I didn’t write down the link. Drat.
• Julie Nelson - She is trying to create a community around summer cottages in Canada. She has a hard road ahead of her due to the elder demographic she is trying to reach. I can not even get my parents connected!
• Mike Melanson - A Linux engineer using WordPress.
• Harald Rudell - A systems engineer using WordPress.
• Eleanor - A photo blogger.

Plugins worth checking out:

• Democracy - Allows for user polling in posts.
• SEO Title - Improves post title search capability.
• Brian’s Threaded Comments - Thread comments like a forum.
• WP Mobile - Enhances your web page so that content can be easily consumed on mobile device.

Finally, a few links:

• Finding Dereck - This is an author who is using a blog to create the main character of her new book through user participation. Clever.
• SOB Awards - Awarded to successful bloggers.
• Google Webmaster Central Blogspot - Web master tips and tricks.
• Google Webmaster Central - Tools for web masters.
• Google Keyword Tool - Improves your understanding and use of web keywords.

Tags: WordPress