The WordPress Podcast

Note: I didn’t mean to publish this to the podcast feed, but I guess podPress assumed it was a episode and published it anyway. Cest la vie! So, consider this lagniappe. - Charles

This is a collection of voices and interviews from WordCamp Dallas 2008 with Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress and the The WordPress Podcast.

Lorelle wandered around during the breaks at WordCamp Dallas asking participants for their opinions on the weekend event and their thoughts on WordPress and blogging in general. Everyone was so open and sincere in their appreciation of the event, excited to meet Matt Mullenweg and the rest of the Automattic team, and the top notch speakers, some of whom shared their thoughts on the event with me in this interview.

The variety of bloggers present were incredibly diverse, covering everything from life blogging to cooking to high technology. DB Ferguson of No Fact Zone, one of the top Steve Colbert fan sites shared her blog post and thoughts about sitting behind the famous Matt Mullenweg during the conference - close enough to touch!

Dorian Karthauser of DK Enterprises had only been blogging for three weeks, one of the “youngest” bloggers present. She took time out to share her thoughts on being new to blogging and WordPress, citing some of the challenges she’s had learning how to blog with WordPress as well as the lessons she took away from the conference.

Charlene Mullenweg shared some thoughts and insights into being the sister of one of the most famous “Matts” around, and about her own experiences blogging, and being in a blogging family.

Lorelle enjoyed talking to people about their thoughts on WordCamp Dallas, WordPress and their personal experience with blogging. Sit back and enjoy the next 32 minutes of insights and lessons learned.

The voices include:

00:10 Bill Sholar of Webfratelli
00:37 Dan Bates
00:59 Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today
01:45 Ptah Dunbar
02:34 Bryan Lee
03:14 Cory Miller of iThemes Media
03:44 Henry Pugsley
04:07 Kerry Webster of WEBsmith internet consultants
04:44 Wendi McGowan of Wendistry, LLC and Scott Ellis of vsellis.com
05:36 Dave Curlee and Katherine Curlee of RealCookN.tv
06:28 DB Ferguson of No Fact Zone
07:48 Alexander Frison of Not a Niche
09:18 Tony Cecala of Holistic Networker
10:04 Mike Borschow of MetroQ.com
11:55 Mark Ghosh of Weblog Tools Collection
12:30 Dorian Karthauser of DK Enterprises (beginner blogger)
17:35 Charlene Mullenweg (sister of Matt Mullenweg)
23:15 Jim Halloran of AlcoholismDiseaseFree.com
24:13 Ryan Joy and Michelle Greer of Volusion and Michelle’s Blog
26:41 Kathleen Ratliff
27:14 William Addington of Williamedia
28:31 Doug Smith of smithsrus.com and Hide a Pod
29:25 Ronald Huereca of Readers Appreciation Project and Weblog Tools Collection
30:23 Dimitri (blog not public - biotech)

 

 Voices of WordCamp Dallas [32:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2026)

I’d intended to release this episode during the week of March 30th, days after it was recorded live at WordCamp Dallas, but problems with the recorded audio prevented doing so. The audio you’ll hear was actually ripped from the video John Pozadzides released, so thanks, John!
Joining me on the dais were Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, Mark Jaquith of b5media, later Mark Ghosh of Weblog Tools Collection, and later still, Matt Mullenweg of Automattic. Lorelle Van Fossen was nice enough to run around handing the wireless mic around so people could comment and ask questions. Subjects discussed and links to items mentioned in this episode include:

1. WordPress 2.5 had been released exactly 24 hours prior. Some people have experienced problems with IE7 and other plugins. Expect 2.5.1 within about a month.
2. Beginning with WordPress 2.2 incoming links were changed from Technorati to Google Blog Search. If you’d prefer to revert back or use some other link reporter, find the Incoming Links Box’s “Edit” link in the Dashboard and change it to the RSS feed of your choosing.
3. Issues with “disappearing plugins” relate to the plugin updater’s requirement that plugin authors build in additional functionality to work properly with the updater and submitting it to the plugin directory.
4. Mark Jaquith discusses the genesis of his Comment Inbox plugin. Lorelle chimes in with Comment Ninja, a Firefox Greasemonkey script.
5. We discussed security, including the possibility of an independent review of the core, as well as the direction themes and theme development might take in the future.
6. Matt expressed a desire for improved client-side JavaScript performance.
7. Ronald Huereca asked an interesting question about how developers might store data without creating new database tables.
8. Scott Ellis asked for examples of WordPress being used as a CMS or other unusual uses, and the panel offers up Automattic’s Publisher Blog, Trumors and 71 Miles, amongst others.
9. Rick Ankrum’s question about changes made to the default theme leads to an interesting throw-away comment by Mark Ghosh concerning a possible file integrity-checker making its way into future versions of WordPress.
10. Jill McKeever’s question about image borders and a “word wrap button” stumps the panel. (Did we ever come up with an answer for this?)
11. Someone asks about the future of Sandbox, and the possibility of incorporating its best features into the core. Several themes are discussed, including the Options theme and Regulus.
12. Matt expressed frustration with the way WordPress handles menus as static pages and sub-pages, raising the possibility of choosing which items appear in the navigation menu. Mark Jaquith brings up his Page Links To plugin which allows you to point pages and menus to links outside of your blog’s domain.
13. Matt also expressed frustration with the disparity between the image uploader and inserting an image from within the WYSIWYG editor, and brought up the possibility of an easy “image caption” function.
14. Jeff Chandler’s frustration with the perception of WordPress not being able to withstand the “Digg effect” leads to a minor debate on caching. Matt effectively debunks the issue, blaming bad server configurations and cautioning against reliance on WP-Cache and WP-Super Cache. Mark Ghosh cautions against the use of Bad Behavior for high-traffic sites.

 

 Standard Podcast [55:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2689)

Jonathan and I were fortunate to be joined by Matt Mullenweg, Mark Jaquith and Mark Ghosh for this live recording of The WordPress Podcast during the 2nd day of WordCamp Dallas. Since WordPress 2.5 had been released only 24 hours earlier, we discuss amongst ourselves and the attendees our thoughts on the admin and Dashboard redesign, the streamlined workflow, the new media uploader and some issues those who’d updated the night before had with Internet Explorer and some plugins.

We also discussed an idea Mark has expressed about a plugin he’d written to create a comment moderation panel and the implications it has on future WordPress versions.

We’ll be posting an audio-only version of this episode to the normal feed a little later on, but for now, here’s the video.

Dallas-area residents Cali Lewis and her producer/husband Neal Campbell spoke to attendees of WordCamp Dallas last Saturday, telling them of their struggles and dreams launching GeekBrief.tv, how they use WordPress to administer several blogs and their plans for their upcoming Big Trip.

My takeaway from this session is twofold: Neal spoke about his “laser-like” determination to make their dreams into reality, and Cali, at one point, told the audience at some point you have to, “just do it!” In the coming months, I intend to take their lessons to heart.

WordCamp Dallas‘ 2nd session came from John Pozadzides, who gave the session entitled 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog. (Despite anything you may hear on the video, I later ruled that, because John spent extra time answering questions from the audience, that he actually was successful in presenting all 45 tips within 45 minutes.)

Toward the end, John previews Woopra, an amazing stats program. Here’s a special deal for listeners of The WordPress Podcast (or, at the very least, people who read this blog): There are currently 8 reviews for The WordPress Podcast on the iTunes Music Store Podcast Directory. I’ll be picking 7 reviews added to the 8 that exist already that I find creative and awarding Woopra invite codes accordingly.

Change in plans!

The first 7 people who link to this post will receive a free Woopra invite.