Today's post is brought to you live from the WordCamp event in Portland, Oregon. Stay tuned throughout the day for updates!
9:00am And it begins ... welcome to the second annual WordCamp Portland, hosted in the downtown offices of WebTrends right next to Pioneer Courthouse Square.
9:15am The first door prize giveaway. They're giving out web hosting, premium subscriptions to the WP E-Commerce suite via raffle tickets.
9:30am Communication breakdowns already. "Why is the wall up," everyone asks when they start dividing the room before the first so-called "general" session. Unfortunately, my power outlet is now on the other side of the wall ... so my live blogging might be short-lived.
10:00am Wow, I never realized how un-optimized my website was. Now I get to learn how to use gzip compression for all my Javascript and CSS to make things run more smoothly. I also need to work on reducing the number of files I'm sending to the browser.
10:25am Next up, learning about podcasting. I've wanted to start a podcast on this site for some time ... maybe now I'll know how! :-)
10:55am I'm sure the speakers have good things to say, particularly since they're speaking from their own experience. Unfortunately ... we have yet to hear it. I'm not nearly as jazzed about this presentation as I was the last one. Sad. :-(
11:20am So podcasting is like blogging. Same rules. Hard work. Hard work. And it's really hard, but fun. Yeah, this didn't really help me learn much more about podcasting than I knew when I came in here today. Hopefully the next session will be more engaging and educational.
11:22am Time for lunch, followed by a Q&A with the creator of WordPress. Looks good! Laptop will be off for a while, but I should be able to start the live stuff back up very soon!
12:45pm Now presenting ... the creator of WordPress ... Matt Mullenweg!!!
1:00pm And now we get to ask Matt anything and everything about WordPress. First question: can we make money using the hosted WordPress repository?
1:20pm They want to remove the under-used multiple roles feature in WordPress. I didn't even know they had a multiple roles feature. Now I want to use it!
1:30pm Is WordPress just for bloggers? Apparently not any more. Even SitePoint is powered by WordPress!
1:48pm Are there resources for teachers and students to help them use WordPress? There are a few ... but I personally think there should be more. Not just events, but maybe a free-ish hosting and instructional service.
2:15pm Learning about using WordPress Multi User with the WP E-commerce plug-in.
2:30pm Yay for over-taxed Internet and live online demonstrations ... makes everything work just that much more slowly.
2:45pm They're already setting up for our ice cream break. That is really distracting ...
3:05pm Two sessions left today and I'm already tired. A couple of my friends ducked out early, but I'm committed to staying for the whole day. The question now is: am I more interested in mobile blogging or using WordPress as a CMS? I should probably make up my mind here pretty quickly.
3:20pm Mobile it is. More because I'm too lazy to move and it'll be in this room than for any other reason :-)
3:52pm I didn't realize just how many iPhone users there were. I'm really out of the loop and behind the times ...
4:02pm Learning iPhone specific meta-tags for web development. Apparently "Viewport" will make the site look better on the iPhone's Safari browser. I should probably learn this on behalf of some of my clients ...
4:30pm Building a WordPress-powered portfolio. I'm looking forward to this chat!
4:50pm Great conference and fantastic closing talk. Unfortunately, my battery is just about shot and I need to shut things down before my laptop goes on strike. Take care, and have a great weekend!