Jacob Santos gave a lecture at WordCamp Dallas on WordPress testing in which he makes a strong argument for destructive testing of WordPress as a means to improvement.

When you think of a project like WordPress that powers millions of blogs, it’s hard to imagine all of the infinite ways that people will test the software and find ways to break it. But Jacob makes a case for automating the testing in order to have consistency and to find bugs much quicker than by simply releasing the code to the real world and watching what happens.
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I had the honor and privilege of moderating a power packed panel at WordCamp Dallas comprised of Matt Mullenweg, Mark Ghosh, Liz Strauss and Aaron Brazell on the topic “The Business of Blogging”.

The panelists discussed how businesses of any size might better incorporate blogging and other forms of new media into their marketing and product development plans.
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Next in the lineup of WordCamp Dallas speakers is Chris Smith, Lead GravityStream Strategist at Netconcepts, who lectured on Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers.

Chris has five patents pending for his work on local search and presentation technologies, and his specialization centers around natural search optimization.

Incidentally, there are two more WordCamp Videos still to come, so for my regular readers who are not into blogging… it’s almost over and we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled silliness soon!
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Folks, our friend Johny has uploaded a Woopra overview video which is so comprehensive it even taught me a couple of things about how the application works!

If you’re using Woopra currently, I recommend that you spend 10 minutes with the video and pick up at least a few new tricks. If not, you can see what all the buzz is about, and what you’ll soon be able to get access to.

For those of you who can’t wait till the closed beta ends to get started, there are two opportunities to get your invite now:
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Have you got a presentation to do? Need some tips? Well, here is a great Presentation that no only tells you what to to, but leads by example. In fact, you know it’s a good presentation when you don’t need anyone to give it… its completely self explanatory!
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I’m pleased to be able to present the Queen of WordPress, Lorelle VanFossen! This presentation is from WordCamp 2008 and Lorelle gives her WordPress Power Tips!

If you haven’t read Lorelle on WordPress and you’re a blogger… well you’re missing out. And you should also check out her Camera on the Road site to keep up with wherever in the heck she is right at this moment!
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I was very pleased to work with Charles Stricklin this year on organizing the WordCamp Dallas 2008 event held at City Hall in Frisco, TX.

A very special Thank You goes out to Mayor Mike Simpson and the entire City Council for allowing the event to be held in the Council Chambers. And also to Tom Kraemer, the City’s AV Manager who worked tirelessly all weekend to record and catalog all of the WordCamp videos which I’ll be posting over the coming days.

We also need to thank our generous sponsors without whom this event simply wouldn’t have been possible (please spread the link love):

• Layered Technologies
• Find My Host
• 3Tera
• Automattic
• B5Media

The first speaker at WordCamp this year was Matt Mullenweg, and he gave a lecture on “WordPress 2.5 and Beyond”.
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Today I’ll be attending WordCamp Dallas, which Charles Stricklin and I jointly organized. We’ve got a whole line up of fantastic speakers including Matt Mullenweg, Jonathan Bailey, Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell, Liz Strauss, Lorelle VanFossen, Chris Smith, Aaron Brazell, Jacob Santos, and Mark Ghosh.

If you’re one of the WordCamp attendees and you happen to be sitting in the lecture hall reading along as I stand here on stage, well… deja vu! Otherwise, for my normal readers here comes a list of 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog! If all goes well we’ll be recording the lecture and will be able to append the video to this post later.
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A little while back the editors at Frisco Style magazine asked me to share my Top Digital Photo Tips, and the attached scan shows the article that ran in the magazine.

This article was written for absolutely newbies, so if you don’t have a lot of photography experience, this one is for you! These are the 7 most important tips to drastically improve the quality of your images. For ease of use, the following is the text from the article.
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I have to start this article out with a story. I was talking to a young guy, who shall go un-named, and he was relating the tale of a date he went on with a girl he really liked. He was smitten with her, but unsure as to whether the feeling was mutual. The story went something like this:

One of my friends introduced us at a party last week. After e-mailing back and forth a few times we decided to meet at a bar after work. When I arrived, she was waiting for me and asked if we should go to the bar or get a table? I figured it would be quicker to go to the bar so we did. She had a Coke, and I got a beer.

After we hung out at the bar for about 30 minutes she mentioned that she was hungry, and there was a Subway nearby so I suggested we go grab a sandwich. She thought that sounded great, so we met over there and ate and chatted for about an hour. This chick was awesome! She even paid for my beer at the bar, and picked up her own dinner at Subway! She’s supposed to e-mail me about going out this weekend.

My dear, cheap-ass friend. Trust me, she’s not interested. Young guys always make the mistake of thinking that just because a lady is laid back and seems to enjoy hanging out, that it means she’s actually content. No, my little naive buddy. Every woman - without exception - enjoys being treated specially, so you must make a concerted effort to romance them.

Here are 14 tips on how to be romantic. HINT: Meeting a girl at Subway to watch her eat a sandwich she paid for is not on the list!
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Ok. I swear you guys all must think I’m a drug addict or something because first I wrote an article about How Cocaine is Made, then How Crack is Made, and now How to Grow Your Own Marijuana… but I swear I’ve never taken an illegal drug in my life!

In fact, unlike all of our politicians who just claim they “never inhaled”, I honestly have never even seen an actual marijuana cigarette. But perhaps therein lies the curiosity. After watching these videos you’ll know exactly how people grow this stuff, so whenever you hear about a drug bust on the news it’ll no longer be mysterious.
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Gold is over $1,000 per ounce! That means that every one of those 70 pound gold bricks you always see in the movies is now worth $1.12 Million! It’s enough to make you wish you owned a gold mine! Well, if you did, here is what it would take to get that gold out of the ground and actually turn it into one of those bricks.

This clip is brought to us by the good folks at Reuters, and the mine being profiled is the Newmont Nevada gold mine. There is also more info on Gold Mining over at Wikipedia.
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