Getting Ready for WordCamp Milwaukee 2!

WordCamp Milwaukee 2013

My goodness, it’s less than a month till the second WordCamp Milwaukee!

<puts on organizer hat>

During and after last year’s inaugural event, veteran WordCampers were telling us that WordCamp Milwaukee was one of the best and most informative camps they’d been to. So, of course we had to make it bigger and better for 2013!

First off, we added another half-day to the extravaganza: Foundation Friday (June 7, 2013) is going to be a set of workshops aimed at WordPress beginners: We’ll have WordPress 101 classes for new users — bloggers, business folk, anyone who is making content for the web using WordPress.

But that’s not all! <see, I’ve got my organizer/promoter hat on!>  If you’ve been using WordPress for a while, and wonder what it might be like to design themes or develop plugins for WordPress–come to Foundation Friday! We’re having a development track too!

After Foundation Friday, you’ll still have two full days (June 8-9) of WordPress learning to enjoy! Plus a repeat of the fabulous Saturday After-Party, lunch both days, the Happiness Bar (to get your specific problems addressed), and still more wonderfulness!

<Putting presenter hat on>

Right after lunch on Saturday (June 8), I will be offering a mini-preview of my next book project, talking about “Building Authority – and Audience – with WordPress and Google Author.” Building your reputation and demonstrating your authority as an expert in your particular niche can be a difficult task. Google is trying to help you, though. I’ll show you how to put your high-quality content at the top of the findability charts, with WordPress and the Google Authorship program.

Learn more about WordCamp Milwaukee, and buy your tickets at the website. And hey, if you need some help with the price, type in ‘McCallister’ for a discount when you register.

Look forward to seeing you June 7-9 at Bucketworks!

Blatant Self-Promotion: New About page, WordCamp MKE coming

English: Flag of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hey folks,

There’s more information coming to Notes from the Metaverse soon, but this is a short piece to tell you that I’ve updated the About Notes from the Metaverse page to tell you a little more about this blog and its author.

I can also tell you that WordCamp Milwaukee 2013 will be coming on June 8-9 at Bucketworks. The organizing committee is hard at work to bring you the best weekend of WordPress information and discussion possible. Make your plans now, and I’ll look forward to seeing you there!

Facebook, WordPress and HTML5

 

Last month, Facebook updated its iPhone/iPad mobile apps, opting to create native apps instead of the new HTML5 standard. Users (this one included) complained about the painfully slow loading app, so Facebook engineers solved the problem using a different programming language. Some saw this retreat as “a blow to HTML5” as a standard. This week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg reinforced the meme when he declared that “betting on HTML5″ was the company’s biggest strategic mistake.

If you ask me whether the HTML5 standard took a blow in this affair, I’d have a fairly unqualified ‘no.’ My reasons are both technical and philosophical.

From a technical, practical standpoint: Well, first, it’s really unfair to call HTML5 a programming language. Let’s be real–we’re mostly talking about tagged text here! I don’t know how much Facebook relies on the rich media pieces of HTML5 (video, audio, and animations). I will suggest that the terrible performance of the Facebook mobile app is more about browser support in the early days of the standard, and browser support, even on mobile devices, will always get better. (In the short-term, some have also noted that Apple doesn’t allow the “Nitro” JavaScript library that might have speeded things up.)

This brings me to the more philosophical reasons that underlie everything Facebook does, including dissing HTML5: Why does Facebook even matter to supporters of the open Web? Facebook is creating a walled garden that is designed to control its users’ experience, and force them to stay within its borders, where all the fun happens. Oh, and provide its advertisers with the appropriate number of eyeballs.

What you need to remember is that people have always chosen the open Web over walled gardens. The last company that tried to defeat the Internet was America Online (AOL). Like Facebook today, AOL in the 1990s was a place where people got their feet wet with electronic communication and entertainment. They built their membership base so well that AOL actually bought Time Warner (perhaps you thought it was the other way around)! But the more people heard about the Internet and the World Wide Web, the more they clamored to get access to it. Today AOL is little more than a purveyor of free email addresses.

I’m no business analyst or pundit, but let me suggest that there’s a real reason walled gardens fail in the end: The Internet generally, and the World Wide Web specifically, was built for three fundamental purposes: to allow human beings to get informed, communicate and collaborate with each other. HTML5 and other web standards continue to further these goals. To the extent that Facebook, or any other company, puts those goals first, they will prosper in the long run.

One reason I’ve been a WordPress supporter all these years is because this community has always been a backer of the open Web. It will prosper too.

Climbing off my high horse now to deal with more mundane issues. This rant was partially sparked by the research I’m doing to prepare for Tuesday’s Milwaukee WordPress Meetup on WordPress 3.4 and Web Standards. We’ll be at Bucketworks September 18 at 7PM. Paul Sanchez will also be talking about WordPress accessibility. See us if you’re in the neighborhood.

Related articles

• Zuckerberg’s Biggest Mistake? ‘Betting on HTML5′ (mashable.com)
• Facebook’s Zuckerberg: ‘The biggest mistake we’ve made as a company is betting on HTML5 over native.’ (venturebeat.com)
• Facebook never bet on HTML5 (groovecoder.com)
• Everything You Always Wanted To Know About HTML5* (*But Were Afraid To Ask) [Slides] (techcrunch.com)

 

Attend WordCamp Milwaukee 2012 for Just $10

If you read this blog at all, you probably already know that WordCamp Milwaukee is coming up real soon now. June 2 is just a week from Saturday, and the weekend after a big US holiday.

Maybe you also know I’m working on a presentation for Sunday, June 3 about what YOU can learn about WordPress just by wandering around WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

A bunch of other WordPress gurus, nearly all from Wisconsin and Illinois, will be putting on a terrific program for both extraordinary users and extraordinary WordPress developers (and by “extraordinary” I just mean YOU).

Anyway, if $20 for a whole weekend’s worth of inspiration and practical help for your WordPress site is still a little tough to justify in these hard economic times, what if I can make this weekend cost just $10? Did I forget to mention that includes lunch on Saturday and Sunday, and a fabulous after-party on Saturday night?

So how do I get this deal? Go visit the WordCamp Milwaukee ticket window, and type (or paste): wcspeaker in the Coupon Code box. And you’re in!

I really hope to see you at Bucketworks in Walker’s Point on June 2-3. You don’t have to thank me for the sweet deal, but I’ll be happy to talk to you anytime over the weekend.

Spring Conferences Galore!

Busy month ahead, with much to say and much to learn. This time of year is usually when I can go to professional conferences, but I seem much more involved with organizing them this year. In particular, I’m talking about (and at, truth be told) these two, separated by just two weeks!

Flag of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Saturday, May 19: WriteCamp Milwaukee 4

This “traditional un-conference” (if there can be such a thing) is for everyone who writes: Fiction, nonfiction, with multiple books and/or bylines or just a blog or a novel cooking in the word processor that no one’s ever seen. No matter what sort of writing project you’re interested in doing, there’s a place for you at WriteCamp.

What’s traditional about this un-conference? Well, the biggest thing is that there’s no set schedule. You’ll come in to the Hide House in beautiful Bay View, in the southeast corner of Milwaukee and encounter a blank wall with time slots and rooms demarcated with tape. Want to lead a session about something? Take a Post-It note and slap the topic in one of the blank slots. You’re in! Of course, some of us have posted some ideas for sessions on the website already. You can add some there too. There are no guarantees that any of them will be presented–but if you post a comment on the ones you want to see, the people with the idea will be impressed (believe me!).

I have learned more than a little at previous WriteCamps, mostly about social media and freelance practices. I’ve led sessions on the future of journalism and held WordPress clinics. This year, I’m planning sessions on getting into technical communication and “WordPress for Writers.”

The other traditionally unconference-y thing that WriteCamp Milwaukee adheres to is that it is free to attend (though if you’re in Milwaukee tonight, April 26, check out the comedy benefit at Stonefly Brewery!), and you get lunch, a mid-day poetry slam demonstration, and a tote bag with assorted goodies besides the education.

WordCamp Milwaukee 2012

Things are really heating up for the first ever WordCamp in Milwaukee, set for the first weekend in June, and that’s terrific!

We have a spectacular lineup of speakers  for both the User track and the Developer track. These WordPress gurus are mostly from the Greater Milwaukee area and from that city of big shoulders a little south of here. You even get two authors of WordPress books: I’ll be the one standing in Lisa Sabin-Wilson‘s shadow.

What am I talking about? All about the amount of help any WordPress user can get just by kicking around the WordPress.com and WordPress.org sites.

There’s an un-conference track, where people will be running informal sessions on topics yet to be determined (and yes, you can get in on that too). And we’re working hard to staff the Happiness Bar for the full conference. This is where users and developers can get answers to their particular problems.

We’re working on some fun stuff too, but it’s not ready to unveil yet.

Unlike WriteCamp, WordCamp Milwaukee costs, though not much (just $20). Buy your ticket before May Day to guarantee your commemorative t-shirt.

All this activity is forcing me to miss the annual Technical Communication Summit sponsored by the Society for Technical Communication in Rosemont, Illinois. But you can follow news from the summit via my pals at TechWhirl.com.

Hope to see you at one of these swell gigs!

Somewhat Shameless Self-Promotion: WordPress in Depth

Image via Wikipedia

We’re not especially into the hype and commercialism that often slips into the blogosphere. At Notes from the Metaverse, the goal is to empower ordinary folks to use technology to find their voice and get things done. I hope this blog helps you navigate the occasionally treacherous waters of open source technology, especially desktop Linux and WordPress. I firmly believe that good content is the most important SEO tool there is.

That said, if you happen to know someone who is thinking about starting a blog in 2012, or wants to take advantage of all WordPress has to offer, you could do a lot worse than picking up a copy of WordPress in Depth.

I have to say that I’ve been amazed and humbled at some of the reviews for the second edition that have appeared at Amazon.com. Indulge me for a minute while I show you some of the quotes that warm my heart (even if the spelling isn’t always perfect):

It is well-written for people like me who know there way around a computer but don’t consider themselves too technical.  –Michael Gallagher

This book WordPress in Depth, is easy to understand even when talking about the professional side of WordPress. –S. Nichols

Some manuals have the detail but not the clarity required to be user friendly. This one delivers the information in a clear manner and is well organized. It describes putting up a WordPress blog in a chronological manner that would allow the reader to sit down at the computer with the manual and just work their way through the process.  –Lou Belcher

I was very happy to receive this book because I am interested in starting a blog and I have absolutely ZERO experience with WordPress and very limited experience with any kind of programming at all, but I am pretty good at following “recipes.” To push the analogy, WordPress In Depth (2nd Edition) not only gives you the recipes, but teaches you how the various ingredients chemically react to one another to produce a result. Some chefs want to know that stuff; others just want the cake to come out right. This book is for the former.   –S. Rudge

Bud Smith and I worked hard to make the new edition more “in depth,” yet still friendly to the rank beginner. Admittedly, not everyone agrees that we succeeded.

Thanks to the inevitable lag in publishing schedules, the book doesn’t cover some of the newer embellishments in WordPress, but watch this space for help on that score soon. If there’s something in particular you want to know about, please leave a comment here.

You can find WordPress in Depth wherever you find quality computer books (and I know that’s harder than it used to be), be it in your town or at your computer. It comes in paper and electronic versions.

As the pitchman always says: If you liked either edition of WordPress in Depth, tell a friend. If not, tell me, in the Comments. Ideas for future editions are greatly appreciated too. What have you had trouble learning in WordPress? What features excite you most?

While you’re still in the book shopping mood, you might also want to check out these recent releases:

• Bud Smith, my outstanding collaborator, never stops writing. He’s got Using iPad 2 out now.
• Rochelle Melander, the WriteNow Coach, inspires writers in Milwaukee and elsewhere with her blog and workshops. She’s also a friend of WriteCamp Milwaukee, which makes her a all-round terrific person. Her latest, Write-a-Thon,  is something I’ve been meaning to get since before it came out, but I procrastinate.

And so concludes our marketing interlude. I’ll return to helpful content sooner than you think!

Whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year, I hope it’s a good one! And may 2012 be the best ever!

Dreaming of Summer — and WordCamp Milwaukee!

Image by planetc1 via Flickr

You have no idea how excited I am that WordCamp is coming to Milwaukee next June 2-3, 2012. A small group of us, led by Scott Offord, have been laying the groundwork for this two-day conference on all things WordPress at Bucketworks. We’re ready to accept visitors.

What’s WordCamp? It’s a gathering of WordPress users of all types, where the experienced can share what they know and the neophyte can share their enthusiasm and quandaries. It’s for folks who just started blogging at WordPress.com. It’s for folks who want to understand how plugins work (and maybe why it’s not).  It’s for bloggers, designers, developers … anyone who wants to learn more about WordPress.

Things are still in the early planning stages, but we can tell you the weekend will feature three tracks:

• User Track: more focused on the end-user (bloggers, writers, customers, clients, less-technical, marketing, experience-driven, plugins to make your life easier, SEO, etc)
• Developer Track: more focused on web development using WordPress (Frameworks, creating plugins, customizing the dashboard, contributing to the open source project code, etc)
• Unconference Track: It being at Bucketworks, the home of BarCamp Milwaukee and so many other unconferences, you know we’d have one. This track is more focused on multi-person discussion (create your own session, conversational, philosophical, interactions about WordPress-related topics, unplanned and only slightly structured and guided by you)

In between sessions, we want to set up a “Happiness Bar,” where you can get specific questions answered and problems solved with the help of experts. We’re trying to think of other fun and useful things to do.

You can sign up for WordCamp Milwaukee 2012 right now for the early bird rate of just $20 at the Milwaukee WordPress Meetup site. In the new year, we’ll put out a call for speakers, and launch a more formal site at WordCamp Central.

Want to know more about WordCamps? You can see a ton of video from past WordCamps at Wordcamp.TV. Live around here and want to help? Tell me or sign up at Meetup.

You hear a lot about “community” around open source software generally, and certainly around WordPress. WordCamp is where that community can make itself felt. Hope to see you in June!

Feel free to share your WordCamp memories and questions in the Comments.

Related articles

• What Is A WordCamp All About? [infographic] (thetechscoop.net)

Google Knol Comes to WordPress

You’ll be forgiven if you’d forgotten about Google Knol, an online encyclopedia project begun with much fanfare as a “Wikipedia killer” in 2007.Thus, when Google ended its sponsorship of the project last week, some folk’s first reaction was “it isn’t dead already?“

Many in the mass media and tech press thought this site would become the place to go for solid basic information on the Internet. After all, Knol was backed by the most popular brand on the Internet and written by peer-reviewed professionals, clearly to be trusted more than the hive mind producing Wikipedia.

Clearly that didn’t happen, nor would it be the first time the collective punditry of the universe was wrong about something, either. But this post is not an obituary for a failed project, nor is it a victory celebration for Wikipedia and the hive mind. I want to briefly look forward, and suggest that the project might now see new life.

You see, Knol authors are being offered the opportunity to continue their project on WordPress, by way of the Annotum Project. As the original Knol site fades away (no new content after May 1, 2012; closure in October 2012),  Knol authors can choose to move their existing articles to WordPress.com, or set up their own Annotum sites using self-hosted WordPress. Of course, this means that Knol authors are less likely to be isolated off in their own little part of the Internet (where they could be easily forgotten), and become part of the broad and lively WordPress community. Could be good for all of us!

Meanwhile, it’s been a week since the announcement by Google and WordPress, and it appears that Annotum may prove to be a rebirth, not a final resting place for Knol. The beginnings of an infrastructure for Annotum are coming together:

• In the first week, the Annotum base theme has been downloaded more than 5500 times from WordPress.org.
• A support site is live at UserVoice, with a knowledge base and a small bit of feedback.
• Annotum even has “Annotum2Go” packages at GitHub that will set up a web server on Windows and Mac machines and configure WordPress/Annotum sites.

Recognizing that this bit of optimism might also end up entirely wrong, I intend to follow the project’s progress, and see what happens. I might even contribute a WordPress or openSUSE article at some point.

If you’re a Knol author, welcome to the WordPress community! I really want to know what you think about the future of the project. Are you sad that Google pulled the plug? Are you surprised that you didn’t transition to another (say, more Googlish) platform? I know of at least one person who is. Will Annotum meet your (individual and collective) needs? Will the Peter Arno article ever be finished?

Other comments on Knol and Annotum appreciated too.

Pruning WordPress Theme and Plugin Directories

Image by planetc1 via Flickr

Last weekend at WordCamp San Francisco, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg announced a most sensible plan to prune the existing plugin and theme directories.

When you’re building a software ecosystem, numbers count, and WordPress successfully built its plugin ecosystem to the point where more than 12,500 applications were accepted into the directory. At least, that was what we reported in the newly released 2nd edition of WordPress in Depth (at better bookstores everywhere, and online, of course). Today, that number is nearly 16,000! The theme directory isn’t quite as prolific, but still has close to 1500 themes.

So WordPress has demonstrated that it can attract designers and developers to build on its core functionality, but now the user has to wade through all those apps to find the right tools and look for their site. The directory offers some help with descriptions, compatibility information and other statistics.

We of the community can also contribute ratings and other real-world compatibility information, but not enough of us do that. If you need evidence for that, consider that only 23 people have reported on whether the highly popular All-in-One SEO plugin works with WordPress v3.2! And that, of 8.5 million downloads of the same plugin, only 1070 users have bothered to rate it.

Soon all these numbers will be going down, as themes and plugins that have not been updated since 2009 will disappear from search results. This is only fair, really. There have been a lot of changes to WordPress since v2.8 (the active version two years ago). If a developer hasn’t even checked to see whether that plugin even works with newer versions, chances are good the user won’t get the benefit of support if something goes wrong.

Over at the WP Dev Updates blog, someone asked “Might there be plugins out there that are so good and really basic that their utility spans greater than 2 years?” Mark Jaquith gave the right answer:

We looked at the old plugins with the highest download counts and saw nothing that caught our eye. Ultimately, if a plugin author can’t update just the “Tested up to” version, then it’s pretty safe to consider it abandoned. The “Tested up to” values for such plugins are no higher than 3.0, and most are far worse.

It may be a cliché, but pruning old dead wood is great for a forest ecosystem. Good for a software ecosystem, too.

See the complete State of the Word 2011 address at WordPress.TV

Some Quick Hits: openSUSE Strategy, WordPress Upgrades, and Some Pointers

It’s summer in Milwaukee, and I haven’t been spending too much time in front of a keyboard lately. You’re surprised?

Anyway, I do have a lot of things on my mind, and here are some of them:

• openSUSE Strategy Vote: This is directed at the 267 formal Members of the openSUSE Community who have not yet voted on the proposed strategy document: As I write this, you’ve got less than 24 hours to cast your ballot.  The proposal has a 90% approval rating right now (and I voted Yes, if you care what I think); but unless at least 35 more members vote, bumping turnout over 50%, the strategy won’t be adopted! The statement doesn’t take long to read, you can vote No, or even abstain if you like, but please make your voice heard!
• WordPress v3.2: In the offhand chance you haven’t heard: WordPress released v3.2 (aka Gershwin) over a week ago! There’s even been an update already! Much more to say about this soon, but goodness knows if you haven’t upgraded yet, what are you waiting for?
• Some Personal History: If you’ve read my About page, or checked out my main website, you know that I’m a technical writer by profession. I wrote a brief account of my “Adventures in Publishing: Finding a Gig as a Computer-Book Author” for the webzine associated with the venerable Technical Writing mailing list (TechWr-L). You may find it interesting.
• Getting Yet More Social: You may have heard about this new little social network called Google+. It’s really been flying under the radar, don’t you think? I’ve been playing around there this week. If you’re there, connect with me here. If you’re not there, and are anxious to learn more, my Invite button is still showing. Drop a line with your name and email address to gplus-at-michaelmccallister.com. I’ll see what I can do.

That’s all for now. Expect to be hearing more from me on these and other riveting topics as the summer presses onward.