• Session: Jason Grigsby – Speed Up WordPress. Make Readers Happy and Your Site Green
  1. Setting expires headers really does matter in the battle for page loading speed/efficiency.
  2. SpriteMe makes CSS sprite implementation so easy there’s little excuse not to try it.
  3. There’s a promising SQL query stats plugin for WP available:  SQL Monitor
• Session: Woopra intro w/ Lorelle VanFossen (who is very friendly!)
  1. Woopra provides real time analytics via a cross-platform desktop app.
  2. Woopra is free while in beta but will continue supporting most existing accounts when they go full release and start charging for the service.
  3. Woopra utilizes javascript embedded in the site in order to track (line Google Analytics).
  4. Woopra’s real time capabilities provide insight into the results of social networking + marketing campaigns.
  5. Woopra’s interface is snazzy!
• Session: Matt Mullenweg – WordPress Q&A
  1. Matt is a funny guy in person too!
• Session: Unconference discussion of the WordPress Codex (I suggested this topic)
  1. The Codex’s short comings are well known and being addressed!
  2. A new “handbook” documentation system is in the works and volunteer help is needed.
  3. The plan is to approach many help topics from multiple points of view such as Theme Designer, Core Developer, Plugin Developer, etc. as well as having “lessons” for particular tasks.
  4. The new docs will be standardized, version controlled, community driven, and overseen by the WP team.
  5. We can contribute to the current Codex (it’s MediaWiki driven) and our good stuff won’t be lost in the change over.
  6. A jobs board for WordPress.org is in the works – community cred will be associated with contractors offering their services.
  7. There is a passionate accessible open source community behind WordPress! It may be hard to find but it’s definitely there, and they need volunteer help from anyone involved in WordPress – even if you’re brand spanking new, they need your perspective! Some resources for contributing to WordPress:
     • List of mailing lists to join: http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo
     • WordPress.org Forums (of course): http://wordpress.org/support/
     • Codex article series on contributing: http://codex.wordpress.org/Contributing_to_WordPress
     • #wordpress-dev IRC channel at irc.freenode.net (not sure on regular meeting dates/times)

On another note, there was an interesting mix of MacBooks and NetBooks at the con and from what I was seeing the WiFi was a little flaky (had some issues getting an IP).

If you would like to talk to me at the conference Sunday I will be wearing the below pictured yellow Kool-Aid Man Web 2.OH YEAAH!! t-shirt from Mule Design. I may appear to be derisive or zombie-like but I assure you it’s because I am trying to kick the energy beverage habit and suffering the side effects.

If you can’t read my badge on Sunday, my name is Sam.

Why might you want to talk to me?

1. You enjoy my dry sarcasm.
2. You have something to say about the WP plugin I wrote: TAC (Theme Authenticity Checker)
3. You are curious why I only mentioned the above topics and not others.
4. You take pity on me and want to inflate my ego.
5. You want to meet a real live person you found on the web (even though I may lack celebrity).
6. You enjoy the non-WordPress related content on this site and want to give me a high-five.
7. You think I am a blundering idiot and don’t deserve to live (kindly warn me before you open fire).
8. You really like the below t-shirt and want your picture taken with me. (I’m pretty good looking as well).
9. You are having technical difficulties with you computer; Mac, Windows, or Linux and would like my help (I spend my daylight hours as a support technician).

http://www.google.com/reader/m/ or from a mobile browser just: http://www.google.com/reader/

BOOBS!

Yeah, that’s my Twitter avatar (and my Twitter username is embeded in the img tags’ title and alt attributes – making it viewable on hover) and yours could show up next.

This is a total breech of privacy, now everyone gets the chance to jump to conclusions and think I’m a freakin’ pervert – just because I viewed an image (which could have been from a link, with me having no prior knowledge of the the contents).

So TweetPhoto’s recently viewed feature is cute and all but MAYBE EVERYONE DOESN’T WANT TO BE TRACKED?

The fact that there isn’t even a setting to turn off user tracking is even worse, did they not realize that people like anonymity?

Just thought I’d share this great “feature” before someones wife accuses them of cheating or something even cooler.

Have a super day!

I downloaded the Live CD .iso and booted it in VMware Server on an XP host, then plugged in a 1GB Corsair Voyager USB drive and enabled it for the VM so the Live CD virtual machine would have access. From there I just followed the guide on the eeeuser.com wiki and ran the USB drive install script, booted off the USB stick on the Eee and BAM! this s**t was fast! I was super impressed, I mean Arch is a KISS fast distro but eeeXubuntu destroyed my Arch install by comparison.

Anyways, after playing on the USB stick live OS for a while I opted to install, one partition at ‘/’ (no swap) and MurderFS... I mean ReiserFS. The current eeeXubuntu Live CD is based on Xubuntu 7.10 while the current version of Xubuntu is Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS but I think there’s a guide on the eeeuser Wiki to run the upgrade manager to get to 8.04.. I’m cool with 7.10 for now though.

Wireless worked with NetworkManager Applet OUT OF THE BOX, thank god. I followed the guide (again on the eeeuser.com Wiki) to install ucview to have some fun w/ the webcam (cheese was giving me some issues I couldn’t resolve).

DUDE, this thing flies! General responsiveness is awesome by my standards, and I’ve run all major operating systems on a huge range of hardware with all sorts of configs (let’s not get into that). I can even freakin’ watch the bigger Flash vids that straight up refused to work on my Arch install. Don’t think I’m bashing Arch, heck no, I like to think I have a darn good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Ubuntu based distros vs. Arch Linux and bottom line is I believe that eeeXubuntu is just a super well-put-together distro for the Eee. Color me impressed. But maybe Ubuntu or Debian in general is better suited to the Eee platform?.. I don’t care cause I’m more than happy with eeeXubuntu.

Gripes? out of the box it likes to complain about my battery capacity there’s a bit in the eeeuser.com Wiki about setting up ACPI correctly – I’ll fix it soon / when I get pissed. Whatever, this is sweet.

I had to release my excitement so I spewed this out, comments welcome.
eeeuser.com Wiki eeeXubuntu Home

eeeuser.com Wiki: Customize eeeXubuntu

This made a lot of sense, major changes are being made. Besides, the new look alone was enough to get me interested. Yay, the future KDE won’t be so terribly ugly – oh and I know you can theme 3.5, blah blah but it still looks like garb. When I first saw Dolphin I thought they purposely had stolen some design elements from Gnome/Tango and was glad of it. Let’s hope that all the KDE apps get prettied up to match.

What I really like about KDE 4 is the new graphics system. Screw the widgets and Expose rip off, it’s the fact that all the 3D and composting effects are all integrated into the desktop environment. Hey, Compiz/Beryl/Fusion has come leaps and bounds – I’ve followed it from the beginning, but its bloated. I think that the user experience will benefit from direct integration. And I don’t need the millions of cute effects, I want a GPU rendered desktop with high performance, shadows, transparency and good virtual desktop implementation.

I’m always glad to give a different desktop a go and I hope KDE 4 becomes something that satisfies my needs. Until then, the power of Openbox compels me.

So I got this thing, first impressions were: it’s pretty solid, nice finish (laser engraved keys) , likin’ the USB + PS/2 adapter, full-size Backspace key, and of course, it’s small. When I actually started typing on this thing I realized that the majority of the keys were actually larger than those on a standard full-size keyboard – so I ended up not reaching far enough for the next key and dropping typos like bombs. After a while it really wasn’t that hindering, just surprising, it being a compact keyboard and all.

Final notes: I’m confident that I will get over my fumbling and am not disappointed (especially for $10) . Besides, it looks kinda cool – like it belongs at a terminal or something.
I don’t really miss the 10-key pad, but I often find myself unknowingly reaching for the non-existent second Enter key normally present at the bottom right corner of full-size boards. Although I really don’t care about the functionality of the Hot Keys located at the top, in Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 only the Email key worked for me, launching my default mail client Thunderbird.