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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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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And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for. I’ve slowly but surely been editing, exporting and uploading the WordCamp 2008 San Francisco videos, and I managed to get Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word presentation up last night.

The video turned out pretty good (except for one little 30 second spot in the middle when the tape ran out… doah!), and when you watch it below I would highly recommend that you maximize the video to full screen. The quality in full screen view is great on my MacBook Pro, so I’m assuming it’s gonna work for everyone.
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You know, I think of myself as a pretty prolific blogger. With over 1,100 posts in under two years, its hard to find others who can match my output. So would it surprise you to learn that even with multiple anti-spam measures in place, there are 100 Spams posted to OMB for every post I write!

That’s right. Akismet alone has saved you guys from reading over 100,000 spam comments, so a big huge thanks goes out to Matt Mullenweg and the gang over at Automattic for offering this service.

Day 2 of WordCamp Dallas started out with a live taping of The WordPress Podcast, featuring hosts Charles Stricklin and Jonathan Bailey with guests Mark Jaquith, Mark Ghosh and WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg.

In case I forgot to mention it lately, we want 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

And also to Tom Kraemer, the City of Frisco’s AV Manager who worked tirelessly all weekend to record all of the WordCamp videos.
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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!

Incidentally, the actual video of this lecture is available here. It seems to now have some historical significance because of the introduction of Woopra in the last three minutes.
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Yes, in case no one knew it, I’m blowing the secret wide open. Today (January 11) is Matt Mullenweg’s birthday, and I just want to wish him the best for the new year. For those of you that don’t know, Matt is the original creator of WordPress – the software that makes this (and over 2,000,000 others) blog possible.

So happy birthday Matt! And I hope all the other bloggers out there will pick up on this and pass along their wishes also. I would have sent you a cake, but the kid in the photo ate it before I could get it to you…

Dan Kuykendall provided the first lecture on Podcasting at the WordCamp 2007 conference on Saturday July 21, 2007 at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco, CA.

Dan spoke about the theory and practice of podcasting and how to apply it directly to WordPress using his plugin PodPress.
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What do you do when your blog goes from a thousand pageviews a day to a million? Well, you start out by watching this video of a lecture on HyperDB and High Performance WordPress given by Barry Abrahamson and Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp 2007, in which they explain how they scale WordPress.com across hundreds of servers and constantly tweak and improve performance.

This lecture occurred on Sunday July 22, 2007 from 10am-11am in San Francisco, CA at the Swedish American Hall.
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This one hour session, entitled State of the Word, from the WordCamp 2007 conference features Matt Mullenweg giving an update on the current state and future plans for WordPress.

This lecture occurred on Sunday July 22, 2007 from 3:30-4:30pm in San Francisco, CA at the Swedish American Hall. Matt gave the updates and then allowed those in attendance to ask questions and make comments.
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This was the last one hour session, entitled Developer Duke-out, from the WordCamp 2007 conference conducted by Matt Mullenweg and featuring Mark Jaquith, Donncha O Caoimh, Michael Adams and Andy Skelton.

The Developer Duke-out occurred on Sunday July 22, 2007 from 4:30-5:30pm in San Francisco, CA at the Swedish American Hall and it gave everyone the chance to get to know a little more about some of the people behind Wordpress as well as have the opportunity to ask questions and make suggestions.

The guys talk about some of their favorite plugins, the current and future state of WordPress, and a number of other interesting and at time comical issues.
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