Many thanks to Dave Curlee for recording and editing all of the upcoming WordCamp Dallas videos. Seriously folks, please show him some love for the hundred or so hours he has spent recording, editing and posting these for us.

This is the first of the videos filmed at WordCamp Dallas 2009 a few weeks ago and it’s a panel discussion consisting of: Cali Lewis, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins, Dave Moyer, Matt Mullenweg, Andy Skelton, Liz Strauss, Giovanni Gallucci and moderated by myself.

Topics covered during the discussion included blogging tips, advertising, mistakes and lessons learned, blogging equipment, themes, plugins and much more. I can’t believe how lucky we were to have all of these experts assembled in one place to take questions from the group.
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I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve experienced many instances where the Auto-update feature in WordPress fails to update either a plugin or WordPress itself.

The solution to this problem is remarkably simple, and hopefully will be fixed soon by the WP core developers in an upcoming release. The problem seems to be caused by a messy previous upgrade in which files are left in a temporary “upgrade” directory with the wp-content directory.

In order to solve the problem, you simply need to delete the “upgrade” directory in it’s entirety and then try the upgrade again. I’ve yet to find an instance on several blogs across multiple machines where this didn’t solve the problem.

I’ve had many people asking about what it takes to actually put together WordCamp Dallas, and there have been a lot of questions specifically involving the costs associated with the event.

I’ve been hesitant to share all the details up to this point for a variety of reasons including:

• Confidentiality for our event sponsors.
• No desire for second-guessing from the bleachers. (aka – I could have done it cheaper!)
• Privacy for myself since it involved cost I picked up.

However, I’ve decided that in the interests of the community I will share as many details as possible so that others who are looking to put on an event of this kind will understand what it’s going to take before they attempt to do it. The last thing we need are surprises, especially where money is involved.

Keep in mind that the costs outlined here were to cover around 350 attendees, plus live streaming of the event to a few hundred more around the world. Also know that WordCamp Dallas 2008 had a similar outcome, but at around 65% of the values here.
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For those of you who didn’t see them I’m going to begin posting the WordCamp San Francisco 2009 videos here on the blog. I went to WordCamp again this year to film the speakers and as usual a great time was had by all.

This first video is Matt Mullenweg’s traditional State of the Word presentation in which he covered all the latest official updates regarding WordPress including a little history, the current status, and even future plans. It’s a “do not miss” video for anyone using WordPress.

This video was filmed by Dave Curlee and myself, and the genius editing was done by Michael Pick.
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(Photo courtesy of Zig Baird)

Folks, I wanted to share this story with you all because it’s just so awesome. The following story comes from Victoria Bell, who was the lucky winner of the MacBook Pro at WordCamp Dallas.

I usually try to maintain an ‘attitude of gratitude’. Not claiming to be wildly successful at all times, but the key word is ‘try’. (Sorry, Yoda – - it appears in my vernacular more often than you would approve of.) Having journeyed through the land of unemployment and self-employment for the last ten months, some days, being thankful requires conscious effort. Today, there is no try. ‘Thank you, Lord!’ is the headline banner scrolling across my forehead right now.

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Wow, we’re only 3 weeks from WordCamp Dallas, and we’ve still got plenty of seats left, but I have a feeling they are going to go fast. So you seriously need to get registered before we fill up! What is WordCamp Dallas?

Well, it’s basically a “free” ($30 pays for the T-shirt and meals) blogging convention that is organized by users of the wildly popular WordPress blogging platform. And it’s a one and a half day weekend event that will teach you more about blogging than you will learn on your own in a year. I guarantee it.

Don’t believe me? Fine! Check out the roughly 75 WordCamp videos I’ve already filmed and posted for you guys and you’ll see what I mean! Of course, there is also my lecture from last year on 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog, and here is the video.

Why would you want to start a blog of your own? Hmmm… well, to participate in a community of interest? To establish a reputation as an expert? To open doors for job opportunities? To earn money from your blogging efforts?

Heck, this blog generates $1,500-2,500 per month in ad revenue and I don’t even try (remember, I donate it to charity)!

Now, we’ve got an all star line up of speakers – each of which has generously volunteered their time and energy to make this event what it is. You’ll hear from some online titans on topics that will be immediately actionable after the conference.

But more importantly, you’ll meet hundreds of fellow bloggers with whom you can swap tips and build relationships that will last for years. And you’ll have free and unfettered access to people who can, and will, help you with anything related to your blogging efforts.
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Dammit! Very few things actually infuriate me more than spammers. That is because Spammers are thieves! There is no difference between a spammer, and someone who would go around stealing pennies from everyone they can find. The logic is exactly the same too, “well, if I only steal from them a little, they won’t notice – but if I do it from a lot of people, I’ll get rich!”

I swear to God, I think the crime for spamming should be death by firing squad. And their entire families should be branded with a scarlet letter and humiliated. And their bodies should be burned until nothing remains but ash. Then, the ashes should be put in a plastic baggie which is also topped off with cow manure and a small chunk of lead. The bags should be loaded on a cargo ship crossing the ocean, and then dropped in when the boat is directly above the Mariana Trench.

Here, let me rank criminals for you:

1. Child Molesters
2. Rapists
3. Spammers
4. Murders
5. Politicians

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For those of you who don’t know Barry, he’s the mastermind behind the infrastructure that powers WordPress and all of their various services (Akismet, bbPress, Gravatar, etc.). He seriously knows a lot about hosting infrastructure, as he demonstrated when he gave this lecture about WordPress performance at WordCamp SanFrancisco 2007.

Anyway, this morning he posted a little article about the newest WordPress data center and included a video shot by Aaron Phillips. Watch really closely and you might catch a glimpse of my cameo…
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This evening I ate a 16oz. New York Strip, along with a bunch of other stuff, at The Weber Grill in Chicago. Mmmm! It was tasty.

But as good as the meal was, half the fun was the entertainment value. You see, my buddy Chris from Layered Tech and I braved the -10 degree temperatures and snow to walk 3 blocks to eat there. And when we got there we sat in the bar at a counter overlooking the Grillmeister!

The following photos came from my iPhone while he was preparing our, and many other, steaks. So, here’s to you o’ master of the flames! Budweiser should make a commercial about you.
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Ok. This is hill-arious. Aaron Phillips, and by that I mean the one behind Another Man’s Blog, just invited every other Aaron Phillips on Facebook to be his friend. When they asked him why they should be his friend, he said:

We have he same name!

Duh.

Aaron is also announcing Aaron Phillips Expo 2010 which will be held in a desert location similar to Burning Man. When I inquired as to the nature of the conference he told me:

I am getting them all into one room and killing them so there is only one Aaron Phillips to rule the world.

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Listen up folks, cause I’m only going to say this one time. If you are choosing your site’s theme based on how many ads you can shove in your visitor’s face, or if people come to your site and have to scroll down the page before they see anything other than Google Ads, then your site sucks. And you do too.

Here’s an example:

Someone stopped by my site and left a comment on the blog with a link to the site in this image. I marked it as spam as soon as I verified the site was MFA. I’ll continue marking MFA sites as spam until the day I die, and I hope that all of my fellow webmasters admin their comments and do likewise.
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Since I got an iPhone I’ve been dying to test it’s abilities as a remote blogging tool. Well, here is the first test!

At this very moment I’m at On the Border in Plano, TX pigging out on fajitas. Here’s a snapshot to make you hungry!