Speaking at WordCamp Philadelphia
I’ll be continuing my WordCamp speaking tour at WordCamp Philadelphia on October 30th. I’m giving the latest version of Parsing Strange, my WP internals talk that dissects URL parsing, SQL generation and user-serviceable parts you might run into. With custom page types and custom taxonomies gaining interest and traction in the WordPress community, this talk [...]
Passing The Hot Potato To Facebook
Aside from all of the unsettled feelings created by the Facebook Places privacy un-settings, there was other news coming out of the little “f” today: Facebook acquired Hot Potato. I’ve been a fan since Justin Shaffer first described the idea to me in the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe. Anything that sounds good over heavy [...]
Installing a Micro Cell
About four years ago, I put a low-powered cell repeater into our basement. We live in a stucco house, which is an effective Faraday cage; I mostly work in the basement under a tile floor with very little direct outside exposure (yes, this explains oh so much). The cell repeater did its job as long [...]
Stop Searching and Read A Book
Disclaimers: I’ve written three technical books. Background: Tim O’Reilly, via David Farber’s IP mailing list, pointed at Danny Sullivan’s posting that shed some much-needed light on the the arguments for regulating search. Sullivan’s object of satire was an op-ed piece suggesting that Google’s search algorithms be subject to scrutiny and therefore regulation. Marissa Mayer’s piece [...]
Real World Beckoning
I’ve spent the past six weeks blissfully working on projects of my choosing – some not for profits, some foundations, some friends, and some of my own writing. It’s been fun and liberating, lacking in deadlines, and leaves plenty of time for a dip in the town pool and a bucket of balls at the [...]
WordCamp Boulder slides available
I’m speaking at WordCamp Boulder later on today, in the TechStars room. It’s a small room, without any floor grading, so if you’re not in the first three rows of free-standing seats it’s obstructed view. To make it easier for people to follow along (since some of the slides are critical for grokking the more [...]
Going Commercial Free
Amanda Blum spoke at WordCamp Chicago about web site design and ensuring your content is reaching the desired audience, and that the audience can find and explore the content. Seems kind of obvious. But then she pulled the zinger: don’t display ads and don’t bother with a blogroll. You want readers on your site, not [...]
Speaking at WordCamp Boulder
I’ll be giving an updated version of Parsing Strange: From URL to SQL to HTML at WordCamp Boulder on Saturday July 10. If you’re local, spend the $45 to get thoroughly educated in the latest on the WordPress high-powered, exceptionally low-cost, fully extensible content management system. In Boston, we’d call it a wicked pissah. I [...]
WordCamp Chicago Wrapup
Waiting for my outbound Continental flight at O’Hare airport (now there’s a surprise) after WordCamp Chicago this weekend. One word summary: Wow. I’ve been to the two WordCamps in New York as a part organizer and registration desk sitter, but not as a presenter or active attendee. Now that I’ve been on the stage, I’m [...]
WordCamp Chicago Slides: Parsing Strange
I’ve published the slides from my WordCamp Chicago talk this morning on SlideShare.net. While I had the evil hangover slot, nearly 200 fervent WordPress developers managed to make it into the (chilly) room to hear me rant about SQL grammar, inner joins and Cartesian table products, and why social graphs don’t fit data normalization rules [...]