Join me and the rest of the Bitwire Media crew for too much fun this Saturday, December 19, 2009, for the annual Holiday Marathon from 6AM to 6PM PST.

Each year, the Bitwire Media team celebrate the holidays with a live podcast and video marathon, with interviews, stories, laughter, games, contests, and a lot of holiday spirit from around the world. The cast of characters from the Bitwire includes myself, Dave Moyer and Kym Huynh of the popular WordPress podcast, WordCast, Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, DeBorah Beatty of Living a Created Life, Christina Roberts of Aimless Agenda, Lee Sze of Best of the Net, and of course, you!

This year is even more exciting as it will be broadcast live by Bitwire, but also live and rebroadcast on Internet and terrestrial radio stations around the country!

Here are some highlights of this weekend’s 12 hour marathon:

• Holympics: We’re looking for your best “ho” as in “ho ho ho!” You can call now toll free at 888-721-4126 to record your name, email, and location, and give us your best ho. Or call during the show live. We’ll be playing the best entries during the show. We’ve got some fun prizes for the winner(s). So give us your best ho!
• John Pozadzides with Wealth Nation: John will discuss smart money tips and advice during the holiday season, taking your questions online live to help you with your money issues. John is the CEO of Woopra and host of Wealth Nation and One Man’s Blog.
• Cali Lewis with Geekbrief.tv: Get the best tips and suggestions for last minute high tech gifts from Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.tv, answering your questions on finding the right gift for the geek in your life.
• Charity Chats: Dave Moyer and the team will interview a variety of charity organizations about their efforts and how you can help them make the holidays special for kids, families, and those in need, such as the US Marine Toys for Tots Foundation.
• Chat with Alek, The Christmas Lights Guy: Alek’s Christmas Lights and Decorations, one of the most unusual holiday lighting experiences in the world. A personal fun event and fundraiser for the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, every year Alek decorates his home and connects it all to his website for visitors to control the lights through the site controls and webcam.
• Xmas in July: Join Dave, Kym, and Christina, hosts of Aimless Agenda, for a little tropical heat wave for your holiday festivities, especially with Kym as he tells stories about boxing kangaroos and celebrating Christmas in Australia’s summertime.
• DeBorah Beatty and Lorelle on Handmade Gift Giving: DeBorah and I are long time handmade gift givers and we’ll be talking about some of our favorite and fun handmade gifts and give you some tips to make your own. We’ll also be taking your calls to discuss your favorite handmade made gifts over the years.
• Share Your Holiday Memories: We’re talking to people all over the world, asking them to share their favorite holiday memories. Stop in and share a story with us.

Anything can, and has, happened during the annual Holiday Marathon, so please join us for the 12 hour event, or just stop in for a chat and sip of our nog. The call-in number for this year’s event is toll free 888-334-4248. Or tweet us or follow along on @holidaymarathon on Twitter and track the hashtags #holidaymarathon and #hohoho.

Bitwire Media is a multimedia publishing network, producing podcasts and video shows including WordCast, The Aimless Agenda Show, Liz and Lorelle Show, Living a Created Life, Best of the Net, and Bitwire: Behind the Scenes.

Don’t forget to stop in at a sister marathon, the 30 Hour Day, with our friends, Cami Kaos of Strange Love Live and Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist, my fellow Portland, Oregon, bloggers. They are working hard on December 18-19 non-stop for 30 hours to raise money for great charities and entertain you through the long hours. Hopefully, we’ll be checking in with them during our own event to see how they are doing through their final hours, cheering each other on.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

I’m in Arizona after a very exciting and busy series of conferences, including the very successful WordCamp Netherlands, WordCamp Phoenix, and PodCamp Arizona, visiting family living near one of my favorite authors in the world, Alan Dean Foster.

During WordCamp Phoenix and PodCampAZ, I shared with my audience that I was too excited to just be “this close” to the one man who completely changed my life when it came to writing, actually helping me become a professional writer. Robyn Seaton stepped up to my challenge and connected me with the master himself. This is just one more amazing reason why I love WordPress and WordCamps!

In the next few days, I hope to connect with Alan Dean Foster and tell him thank you and hug him. Hopefully, I’ll also get time to interview him.

Alan Dean Foster is on my top ten list of people I want to meet, hug, and thank for having such a profound impact on my life, changing my path and encouraging me to stay focused on my passion. Earlier this year, the first person on that list was met, LeVar Burton, giving me a chance to say thank you for changing the conversation about disabilities. The list includes Bill Cosby, Shirley Maclaine, Terry Pratchett, and Orson Scott Card. My husband met Card, saying thank you for me, but that’s not good enough. As you can tell from the abbreviated list, authors have played a very strong role in my life, but Alan Dean Foster was the mentor whose knees I sat at and whose words I drank like a sponge.

After arriving last night, we walked the streets of Prescott and stopped in the lovely galleries and shops along Whiskey Row. I bought a key chain and postcard from Prescott to take home and put in my office as a reminder that I was this close to Alan Dean Foster, knowing he’s probably walked these streets and shopped in these stores, or ate at the Hotel St Michael Bistro where we had the best and most beautiful meal, hoping that would just be enough. Waking early this morning to find an email from him, instigated by Robyn, wanting to meet me has me over the top with joy and all the fears that come with making your dreams come true.

When I stop shaking and can compute all of this, I will tell you more about how Alan Dean Foster’s writings rocked my brain from the inside out, teaching me about turning a phrase, storytelling, and understanding the mastery of dialog no school has ever taught, and how knowing his life was richer for traveling spurred my own travels and willingness to jump off the cliff and live on the road full-time for almost 16 years…it’s amazing how one person you’ve never met can influence your life so much. The more I think about the powerful effect his writings and lifestyle has had on mine, the more I’m overwhelmed with emotion and stunned that I may get to actually met him.

For now, I’d like to ask you two important questions. First, if you could ask Alan Dean Foster a question, what would you want to know?

Second, what is stopping you from living your dreams? I’m living mine, with the help of friends, so why aren’t you? What’s your dream and what is getting in your way?

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

It’s time to celebrate blogging and summer in the Portland, Oregon, area. If you are a blogger, come join the summer Blog-b-que!

We’re hosting the first ever Blog-b-que at the home of Lorelle and Brent VanFossen in North Plains, Oregon, on Sunday, August 30, 2009, and you are welcome to join us.

We’re inviting WordPress, WordPress.com, and all bloggers (and web and social media fans) to a picnic party on Sunday, August 30, starting about noon! The theme of the party is “Summer Food” and you are invited to bring food that reminds you of summer.

In addition to summer food and drinks, bring something to sit on, sunscreen, sunglasses, and binoculars as this will be the final day of the famous Oregon International Airshow in Hillsboro. We have a view of the skies and areas west in the valley the planes will be flying through. We have a hot tub, so bring suits (and we have some to borrow).

We are limited to 75 attendees. Sign up on the Upcoming Announcement where you will find directions and more information. You can also contact us with questions via the comments below, @lorelleonwp or via our Contact page. We live about 35 minutes from downtown Portland off Highway 26. Coming back from the beach that weekend? Stop in and rest before heading back to the city!

We will help you arrange carpools from downtown Portland, and will do one or two pickups at the Hillsboro Trimet Blue Line (Hillsboro · City Center · Gresham), the last stop on the Blue Line. If you are interested in taking the train out, let us know so we can arrange pickup times.

The Oregon International Air Show will feature some great airplanes and air performances on Sunday including the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, U.S. Army Golden Knights Parachute Jump Team, high performance aerobatic airplanes, The Robosauraus car-crushing, fire-breathing, metal giant of a dinosaur plane, comedy air performances, vertigo air shows, hammerhead aerobatics, antique airplanes, experimental aircraft, and plenty more.

We will feature music, laughter, stories, and a ton of food! Whose bringing the keg?

Come meet fellow WordPress and other blogging fans and join the summer fun.

We have trails through the woods and down to the creek at the bottom of the property, plenty for kids (adult kids, too) to run around and explore. Elk, deer, rabbits, frogs, coyotes, and birds are around much of the year. We have a few indoor and outdoor games, but bring your own.

This is a no smoking event!

Note: Thank you to everyone who has been so helpful and supportive during my long health recovery. I will be back in action very soon and look forward to seeing everyone at this fun Blog-b-que!

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Kepler Space Mission - Ready for Launch, NASA TV

The Kepler satellite will be launched into an Earth-trailing solar orbit to get above the Earth’s atmosphere for a clearer view of outer space with its telescope and camera.

Called the Kepler Mission: A Search for Habitable Planets, of the recent missions by NASA, this is one of the most exciting as this satellite will observe the brightness of over 100,000 stars over 3.5 to 6 years to detect planets by the transit method, a method of measuring the intensity of the light from the star as a planet moves across the surface and blocks the light from the star. It’s goal is to not only measure the planets but look specifically for planets closer to the size of Earth, which possibly might be more Earth-like.

Kepler on launch pad - from NASA TV

You can watch it on the NASA Portal for Kepler, and listen and watch NASA Kepler webcasts, podcast, and videos, and get more information on their Kepler Launch Blog, and follow their tweets on @NASAKepler.

Kepler Mission launches - from NASA TV

Beyond the Cradle is a blog on WordPress.com by Rui Borges, a successor to spacEurope, both covering the “fight of promoting space exploration efforts worldwide.” The coverage of the Kepler Mission includes correspondence by some of the mission leaders and reports on preparation for the mission, including:

• Kepler Mission – Aiming at a New Earth – With Edna DeVore
• Kepler Mission – Aiming at a New Earth – With Alan Gould
• Kepler Mission – Quick Note from the Cape by Gibor Basri
• Kepler Mission – Harvester of Worlds – By Rui Borges
• Kepler Mission – Quick note from the Cape by David Latham
• Kepler Mission – The Future Starts Here – With Stuart Atkinson
• Kepler Mission – Yielding an Answer – With Jon Jenkins
• Kepler Mission – Launch in 60 minutes
• Kepler Mission – Aiming at a New Earth – launch post

Kepler Mission Launched leaving Earth - from NASA TV

• Wired – Live: Planet-Hunting Space Telescope Blasts Off
• TreeHugger – NASA Kepler Mission: The Question of How Alone We Really Are is About to be Answered
• Discover Magazine Bad Astronomy Blog – Reminder 1: Kepler to launch Friday night!
• Astronomy.com Blog – Kepler satellite launches successfully
• The Plummet Onions – NASA’s Kepler mission to look for other planets capable of sustaining life
• Kepler to hunt for terrestrial-size exoplanets
• Cosmic Diary – Up, up and away! (Warning: Video in post plays automatically)
• Engadget – NASA’s Kepler spacecraft ready to begin searching for other, cooler “earths”
• Nasa Space Flight – LIVE: Delta II launches with Kepler Planet-Finder Launch
• NPR On Point – Kepler and the Search for Life
• Asymptotia – Kepler Ready!
• Scientific Blogging – 5 Quick Facts About The Kepler Mission To Find Earth-Sized Planets
• Spaceflight – Kepler Status

While I was excited about the various NASA projects to Mars, and upcoming exploration of the moon, the Trekie within me is eager to be a part of the search for intelligent life in the universe, and to go boldy where no one has gone before.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

In October of 2008, I started a series called “Exploring Social Media” on the Blog Herald. The challenge was to dig into the myriad choices and options to dance the social dance online, to network, share, inform, and educate with the various tools available.

I began by asking people to define social media, since it is often hard to explain as well as define. What is it really? Do you know? Or do you just think you know?

We use the word “social media” like a favorite trendy phrase. This past year at Blog World Expo, instead of being a room full of bloggers and web consultants, it felt like every other person I met specialized in social media. It was the buzz word of the conference, and all the conferences I’ve been to for the past year. Everyone’s talking social media, but few understood what it really is.

The best definition came from a comment by Alistair Shaw:

Tools that help connect people.

Social media tools connect people. The challenge is which one to use. Which social media tool will connect you to the “right” people – the people you need to know and who need to know you.

Some people rely solely upon their blog and Twitter, but Twitter doesn’t reach everyone in the world, only those using Twitter, and then only those who follow you or someone you know. Over the past few months, I’ve started to explore what other options are out there besides Twitter, as well as explore tools which help you use Twitter better, such as the article I did recently on creating future tweets with TweetLater like I rely upon future posts in WordPress to keep this blog running without me.

In “It Starts With One,” I wrote about how a community doesn’t start with millions. If your goal is to reach out to the masses, you are using social media wrong. It starts with one. If you serve the one, the one will tell one, who will tell two, who will tell six, and your community will begin to build. If you don’t serve the one, and each one after that, bye bye community.

In “Start With the Basics” and “One Size Does Not Fit All,” I wrote basic introductions to help you get started thinking about what social media tools you might use to meet your personal and professional social media needs.

It begins with having a “name” be it your domain name, business name, brand name, or whatever name that represents who you are on the web, how to develop a web presence, how to be found on the web, visual brand identity with avatars and/or Gravatars, how to track your social media success, and more basic tips on how to start building your social media network and tools. From the basics, it’s about learning what tools are available and how to build your community – in other words, which tool is the best for your specific needs aud audience.

I’ve covered a wide range of topics, from the how to use social media tools to current events tracked or influenced by social media and what we can learn from them, such as the “The Motrin Moment Impact of Social Media” and “Live Citizens Press Conference on Twitter.”

In “Shortening Those Links,” I offered tips on how to create tiny or shorter URLs. Other social media tips articles include “The Power of the Link Needs Content” and “Promoting Your Link Backs to You.” I also had fun reporting on the trends in cussing and swearing on Twitter in “Measuring the Curse of Social Media Tools.”

The latest article in the series asks if it is time to create a web apps matching service, that helps us find the right social media and web application tool that matches our specific blogging and business needs, in “Exploring Social Media: Time for a Web App Matching Service.”

I hope you enjoy the series so far. Coming up next, I will be exploring a wide range of Twitter third-party apps which help you use Twitter better and learn how to track and understand your social media network with Twitter. I am testing and researching a wide variety of social media tools, checking out the communities and understanding how they work differently from each other and testing their demographics.

I’ve been speaking at a variety of social media functions, meetups, meetings, and conferences, and including social media tools in my various workshops and training programs for the past few years, helping participants understand all the options for connecting online. The feedback on how people are using the web for their business and social needs is amazing, which I’ll share more in future posts. I’ll also be writing about the various social media groups and associations that have started up in the past two years. The face-to-face of social media is often the most powerful networking you can do, and I want to encourage you to get involved with your local social media group or tech meetup, especially the many WordPress events such as WordPress Meetups and WordCamps.

If you have a specific question or topic you would like me to cover on the Blog Herald in the Exploring Social Media article series, let me know. I’ve just scratched the surface.

Exploring Social Media Series

• Define Social Media
• Exploring Social Media Series
• Social Media Tools
• It Starts With One
• Start With the Basics
• One Size Does Not Fit All
• The Motrin Moment Impact of Social Media
• Social Means Personal
• Do You Know How to Use the Social Web?
• Establishing Your Online Credentials
• Learning About Social at the Goodwill Outlet
• Shortening Those Links
• The Power of the Link Needs Content
• Promoting Your Link Backs to You
• Live Citizens Press Conference on Twitter
• Measuring the Curse of Social Media Tools
• Defining Twitter Demographics and Interests
• Twitter Adoption Stats and Demographics
• LeVar Burton Passionate About Social Media
• Twestivals in 175+ Cities Around the World Thursday, February 12, 2009
• Do You Need The Best Things in Life to be Free?
• Twitter Wins $35 Million in Funding
• Twitter is Broken, Now What?
• Future Tweets with TweetLater
• Time for a Web App Matching Service

Site Search Tags: blogging tips, blog writing, social media, networks, blog networks, social networks
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

My final guest hosting gig with WordCast is called “WordCast 45: Is that WordPress on your wrist?” is out.

We talk about the first EVER WordPress tattoo, Justin Tadlock desire for new ideas for WordPress Widgets, Andy Skelton gets married, BuddyPress about the release from beta, how to choose a WordPress Consultants, and Vladimir Prelovac asks for help choosing his book cover for his book on WordPress Plugin development. We also announced the release of WordPress 2.7.1 RC 1, just before the WordPress 2.7.1 final maintenance release.

We also covered the Twestival this Thursday, February 12, 2009, in cities and communities around the world. I talk about attending the Portland Twestival with my friends from Cooking Up a Story, a sustainablity food documentary and video blog. I also talked about going to the Portland WordPress User Group at CubeSpace Thursday night, creating a day long blogging and WordPress event.

The other podcasts I hosted and was featured on include:

• WordCast 44: Blubbery Muffins
• WordCast 43: The Bikini Job
• WordCast 29: I’m Your Fairy Blogmother!
• WordCast 28: Liez Stross?
• WordCast 20: We *heart* Lorelle

I love WordCast and not long ago, they used Wordle to create WordCast Wordle word art which featured me in the center! How fun!

Regular co-host Kym Huynh is hopefully recovered from a bad car accident and back in Australia ready to take over again next week. You better be, Kym. I’ve done your work long enough. It’s your turn to get tortured by Dave Moyer.

Site Search Tags: wordpress news, wordcast, wordcast podcast, wordpress podcast, kym hynh, dave moyer, wordpress tips, wordpress plugins, wordpress themes

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Part of the magic of blogging is the ability to reach out across the distance and touch a heart. That’s also part of the magic of the Internet in general. It allows us to connect with strangers across the planet and find like-minds.

The first year WordPress.com featured the snow fall effect, WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg, explained that he hadn’t grown up with snow and had just experienced his first snow. It was so exciting, he wanted to share it with others. He decided to share it with everyone on WordPress.com, letting the bloggers choose the option to let it snow for a couple weeks in December on their blogs. The snow option was repeated again this year.

Not a fan of silly web toys, I was touched by this. I remembered going through another extremely warm winter in the Middle East, missing the changes of the seasons and all the eye candy winter brings to other parts of the world where I’d lived. Standing at the window looking out on a yellow, hazy sky shining down on the luscious green park below my apartment, people walking around in shorts and t-shirts, I wished for snow. A shout from the kitchen brought me back to reality.

“Come quick! It’s snowing!”

I raced into the kitchen, sliding across the stone floor, to where my husband had set up a small workspace on the kitchen table. He pointed towards his laptop with a bright grin on his face. “It’s snowing.”

Sure enough, the web page before me featured beautiful snow across a field and dusting the trees in the background. He clicked a link and the next picture was of horses caked in white clumps of snow. The next was of a lovely pond with a giant willow tree at the end covered in white with steam rising off the water’s surface. Click after click brought beautiful scenes of winter accompanied by lovely guitar music.

This was our holiday gift from an Internet buddy of my husband in the classical guitar forum where they hang out and talk classical guitar and music techniques. She’d read how he was also pining for winter in a note he left on the forum. A few days later, a blizzard passed through her Oregon farm and she raced out to photograph all the white wonder and put it together as a web page slide show, accompanied by her guitar playing, just for us.

We stood there and cried, thousands of miles from the nearest snowflake, reviewing each white frosted photograph with envy and lust. We hadn’t realized how much we missed “weather” and “seasons” that we’d grown up with. This was the best gift ever as we stood there in the hot kitchen in our t-shirts, shorts, and bare feet sweating, staring at a web slide show built just for us. For a moment, we could feel the chill.

We were determined then to find us a place to call home where the seasons changed and snow had a good chance of falling.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been totally snowbound in my new home outside Portland, Oregon. A very rare cold spell snapped across the Pacific Northwest, bringing with it over a foot (1/3 meter) of snow. While most people whined that they couldn’t get out, couldn’t get to holiday events, and bothered by the wet and cold, we were in heaven. We had plenty of food, wood stove to keep us warm when the electricity failed, and no events to attend as we know so few in this area yet. We hunkered down, worked whether or not the Internet and electricity permitted, and just enjoyed every moment of the cold eye candy around us.

The second morning of the snow, a dark shadow passed my office window. I glanced out in time to see brown fur. A deer, then two, then three, wandered up the hill poking under the snow in our garden for something to eat, nibbling on the ends of tree branches, flowers, and shrubs.

Birds flocked to the group of bird feeders I’d set up in the back, dozens of juncos, chickadees, Rufus-sided towhees, Stellar’s and scrub jays. We even spotted a pine siskin darting in and out of the Oregon Grape shrubs around the feeders. A raven appeared, scaring the birds away with its hoarse caw, then went off to better feeding grounds.

Brent VanFossen with his homemade wooden sled

He was working in the shop to make a sled for me as a surprise. He cut a piece of plywood and screwed in two 2×4s as runners. He trimmed the ends at a slant to allow it to slide through the snow, added a handle bar piece of wood to rest hands and feet and tie a rope for pulling. We rubbed old candles across the wood runners to make them slide better, and headed up the driveway to test it.

Without the ability to steer, other than shifting our weight and dragging our feet, we spent a lot of time landing in the snow drifts at the side of the driveway. This didn’t stop us from screaming at the top of our lungs with glee for the few meters of speed we were able to experience before jumping the track and sprawling in the snow. I still have bruises in spots where bruises haven’t been seen in years.

A neighbor came by with a small tractor/bulldozer and asked us if we wanted the top of the driveway plowed out where the snow plow had blocked it. We were grateful and agreed. By accident, he started heading down the slanted driveway, sliding much of the way. He managed to turn around as the light left the sky, turning on his headlights to guide him. He tried driving the bulldozer up the hill and couldn’t make the slope. Time and time again, he backed the bulldozer down the drive and made a run for it, gunning the engine. Each time, midway up, he’d lose traction and start spinning wheels and sliding back down. He finally backed the full length of that steep section of drive and gave it all that little engine could take and roared up the driveway.

We cheered his struggles and applauded his ascent. He told us that for a while, he thought he might have to leave the bulldozer down there until Spring. He cleared the top of the drive, avoiding the descent again, giving us an opening for when we were ready to leave.

While I haven’t had a snow day yet, a day of doing something that didn’t involve work, we’ve managed to take a few hours over the past week to play a little in the snow and take a ton of pictures.

Thinking back to my memories of being winter-less for so many years, like Matt, I wanted to share a little of the magic of winter with you. It took a long time to find our piece of heaven, and I want to share it with you. I’ve put together some winter pictures from our two weeks of snow to share with you some of the wintry delight I once so missed. The snow is starting to melt and today we are about to make our first foray out of the house in over two weeks to a family holiday gathering. So while it lasted, let’s share the magic of our first white winter in many years.

Enjoy!

Site Search Tags: snow, holiday, thanks, winter, oregon, thank you, holiday snow, winter snow

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Want to get into some holiday fun and spirit with some holiday WordPress joy? The Bitwire Holiday Marathon is all day, December 20th from 6am-6pm Pacific time, and will include tons of great entertainment, discussions, games, giveaways, and lots of holiday spirit.

I will be appearing at 8AM PST to babble WordPress nonsense and fun. The host is Dave Moyer of WordCast and Dave Moyer, which promises to be a very good time. We’ll be giving away two of my books, Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging, to callers, so come join us now.

To listen, visit the The Bitwire Holiday Marathon for your options, including a call in phone number. They also have a Twitter account so you can chat during the show at @holidaymarathon.

Come join us to talk some WordPress, blogging, and a lot of silliness. We’ll be talking about the 500,000 WordPress 2.7 Downloads, WordPress 2.7, and snow on WordPress.com.

Site Search Tags: bitwire, holiday marathon, bitwire holiday marathon, events, dave moyer, wordcast, podcast, live event, lorelle, holiday, interview

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

This is an experiment to check out LoudTwitter. For the next week or so, I will be playing around with this and getting feel for how it works and how to customize this to work with your WordPress.com blog. Stay tuned for more news.

Apologies to those annoyed by Twitter rambling. It annoys me, too, which is why I need to learn more about how to maximize Twitter content and help you learn along the way.

Are you using LoudTwitter or a similar republishing tool for your Twitter account? How is it working for you? Any tips for me?

• 07:20 Getting a lot of great interest in #sobcon09 in May 2009 Chicago. You going to be there? I will. Can’t wait. #
• 10:56 #wordcampvancouver is this weekend in BC. Will you be there? Wish I was. I’ll be #wordcampportland. #
• 11:36 Looking for digital video editing software. Finding crap. Suggestions? #
• 11:36 @wordcampbham I’m sure #wordcampbham is going to be fantastic. I need some promo material to help, so contact me! #
• 11:38 @backon_online #wordcampportland is going to rock. I am so excited to meet up with new-old friends and NEW NEIGHBORS! Love being in portland #
• 11:41 @jeffr0 Thanks and eager to get news on your new WordPress podcast! How’s that going? #
• 11:41 @secretsushi WordPress 2.7 is due later this fall. A demo will be featured at many of the WordCamps this weekend – so stay tuned for peeks. #
• 11:42 @duanestorey Some friends of mine are heading to #wordcampvancouver this weekend. Glenda and Darrell. Treat them like honored guests for me! #
• 11:43 @kwbridge You can email me answers on how WordPress changed your life at lorelleonwordpress at gmail. Thanks! #
• 11:44 @mollermarketing And you did great answering how WordPress changed your life! You are a video star! #
• 11:46 Idiot Alert: I recorded video at #bwe08 vertical not horizontal. ARGH! How do I flip or rotate digital video? #
• 11:59 @vegasgeek yep!!! Lay down video – new style. Everyone lays down. So used to still, didn’t think about horz vs vert. SIGH. #
• 11:59 @wiredprworks Will be posting how WordPress changed your life video and video of talk after weekend’s #wordcampportland. Going to ROCK! #
• 12:20 @GlendaWH Hey, my new dear friend! lorelleonwordpress at gmail – Your video is ~3 minutes on how WordPress changed your life! #
• 12:21 @vegasgeek LOL That’s the solution for sure. But I like the idea of 200 people laying down to watch much better. Fun at #wordcampportland! #
• 12:53 @bkajino Can’t wait for #wordcampportland You know I’m also talking about Woopra??? Will have some goodies for those attending, I hope! #
• 12:54 OMG Did you all see that I’m on the cover of Blogger and Podcaster Magazine?! Bunch of my articles in there. Wow! Didn’t know until #bwe08 #
• 13:11 @GlendaWH Can’t find your card – found Darrell’s so I emailed him with notes. CAn’t wait!!! #
• 13:18 Ever have one of those days when you wonder why you blog? Back from #bwe08 I shouldn’t but tired out. Need kick. #
• 14:21 @WatershedStudio Blogger and Podcaster Rock Star? right? I was so stunned to see my name on the cover. I’m just little ol’ me. #
• 14:22 @gregbd Right, but not separate. Your blog is yr online resume today. Social business model circles around it. Start blog first then social #
• 14:45 Idiot Alert Off. FOUND IT! How to flip a vertical video back to horizontal. is.gd/31N1 Simple and easy! Whew. #
• 14:56 Michael Moore giving away next movie tinyurl.com/5dkqm8 Slacker Uprising. Another example of how free giveaways make money? #
• 16:13 @vegasgeek What dates are you thinking for WordCamp Vegas? WordCamp Denver scheduling for Jan and don’t want to overlap. #
• 20:28 4 WordCamps this weekend: Portland, Toronto, Utah, Vancouver(BC) WordPress #wordcamp weekend! #
• 22:06 @MikePerry Thanks. It was a surprise to me at #bwe08. Great timing. Blogger and Podcaster Magazine doing some interesting stuff lately. #
• 22:07 YEAH! Raw fooder! Check out the raw food porn book "Raw" by Charlie Trotter. Too much trouble to cook but sexy pics. #
• 22:08 @vegasgeek Denver wanted the same dates for their WordCamp. Will let them know and maybe they can change them. Thanks much! #
• 22:14 @gregbd BuddyPress WordPress Theme on steroids is doing that as are others. Connecting the dots. We need more dot connectors to stop scatter #
• 22:15 @bkajino Woopra is very sweet. I wrote that article (wrong byline), too, after first public preview (hours). It’s even better now. #

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I spent the past few days in Las Vegas for the Layered Tech LTPact 2008 Conference, an event sponsored by Layered Tech, the second largest web hosting and reseller in the world, among WordPress luminaries and experts and a lot of server geeks and serious online business folks.

I got a chance to spend time with Elie Khoury and Jad Younan, co-founders of Woopra, the web analytics program that was the talk of WordCamp Dallas. They arrived from Lebanon only two days before landing in Vegas and were still jet-lagged and culture-shocked from what they had seen so far in the United States – not your normal introduction to this country. Their English is great, though they were nervous speaking it at first, and I was privileged to be the first to interview them. The exclusive interview will be featured on the next WordPress Podcast with Charles Stricklin, discussing how Woopra works and the Woopra API for WordPress Plugins.

I also learned a lot about what goes on under the hood of a blog or website, something we often forget about until our site crashes, goes offline, or the blog borks. One of the most exciting things I learned about is the new hosting service options by Layered Tech called the Cloud that bloggers need to know about.

In the past, if your site was dugg by Digg or linked to from Smashing Magazine, Engadget, BoingBoing, Mashable, or any other high traffic driving site, the typical server set up just couldn’t handle it. With improvements in WordPress and its cache system, and Plugins like Super Cache WordPress Plugin, these worries are a thing of the past – but not completely.

Layered Tech is offering Cloud technology with 3Tera that I think is going to change the way we host our blogs. Called on-demand IT infrastructure or the grid, you can have a flexible website structure, only paying for services you want and need, not having to pay for that which you do not use.

Cloud computing or storage is a networked data storage system using virtual servers rather than dedicated servers. Instead of having your data stored on a single server, it is networked across huge data centers, allowing the data resources to be larger or smaller, depending upon the customer needs.

The typical blogger gets a traffic spike once in a while and the demand on the server typically lasts for a few days and things drop back to a normal level. To accommodate such a demand, we used to have to sign up for web hosting at high levels in order to be ready for the spikes, even though they didn’t come around every day. This new system basically says why pay for what you don’t need, but when you need it, it’s there and you pay for what you use, not what you don’t. You can still upgrade your services when you need them, but this way, you won’t be caught off guard when your site is suddenly the center of attention.

Layered Tech works with a variety of resellers for web hosting services with the “pay as you need” service. According to the Layered Tech representatives I talked to during the conference, you set up your basic service, and if your needs exceed that minimum, the service will expand to meet the need and you will be notified and charged accordingly, and when it drops, the costs drop, too. In a way, this allows your hosting service to grow with you rather than against you.

WordPress.com runs on Layered Tech servers, and if you are self-hosted, I recommend you check with your web hosting provider to see if they are using Layered Tech servers or if their servers use virtual servers and cloud technology. It’s the future and if you are serious about the service your blog offers, you need to be investigating this technology.

What Else Did Lorelle Learn at LTPact?

There were a number of excellent speakers I learned a lot from and will be talking more about soon, including topics on copyright protection, patent and trademark issues and SEO, topics that impact both servers, server software, and online businesses. Our Business of Blogging panel with Matt Mullenweg, John Pozadzides, and I was a great success and sparked a lot of comments and good feedback.

What I learned most had to do with breaking out of my comfort zone. I’m used to conferences where everyone pretty much knows who I am, or will before the end of the first day as I’m typically the keynote or a featured speaker. Only a few knew who I was. I loved introducing myself and being asked who I was with. The first time, I thought they meant if I was with the person I came into the room with, but they meant what company was I with.

“Me,” wasn’t a good response among the corporate thinkers. I quickly restructured my introduction to explain that I was one of the speakers here as an expert in blogging and online community building. Many thought I worked for Automattic and WordPress, so I had to explain I didn’t. I work for me.

The issue of “Where are you based?” came up a lot. My favorite question on that topic was when they asked me where the offices of WordPress and Automattic were based. I told them “on the Internet” just like I was. One man insisted on knowing the geographic location of the WordPress offices. I told them that in today’s modern office, you could have a virtual office on the web and location didn’t matter. Some understood, others shook their heads I just smiled, having lived with a virtual office for many years. It’s the future, folks. Wake up. Geography is important, but becoming obsolete on the web.

These questions helped push my comfort zone around a lot, and inspired a ton of ideas for blog posts, which is why I enjoy stepping out of the safety and security of the known.

The two day conference was filled with great speakers, fabulous food, fun schwag, neat people, entertainment with a magician comedian, and an evening poker tournament. It was in this last event that I got another lesson in blogging.

I did not understand the card game they were playing. It was all for fun, but I was lost from minute one. I’d played various poker card games growing up, excelling at seven-card-no-peek, with my father on long camping and fishing trips, but this was complicated and involved specific verbal commands and hand movements and the taking of extra money from two players on each hand involving something called a blind, a politically incorrect term for someone sensitive to disability name calling. However, I was the first big winner of the night, bouncing two other players out of the game with my very first hand. I still don’t know how I won as none of it made sense.

And I kept winning. Don’t ask me how. I just kept laughing and laughing as the winnings piled up in front of me.

At one point, Barry Abrahamson of WordPress.com threatened to shut down my blog if I threatened his hand. Then Aaron Phillips of FastServer, host of several of my other blogs, threatened to ban my blog, too. I quickly learned that gambling can bring out the mean in many. So I threatened to bet my blogs against theirs and they quickly backed off.

I never quite got the hang of the game, having more fun talking to people as the players were switched around from table to table, and yet I kept winning, finally losing it all as the 12th of the final players. The final ten were award winners so I just missed out.

Several of my fellow players wanted to see the pictures I was taking of the whole conference and especially the poker game, but I told them that I didn’t have a blog upon which to share the pictures. One fellow challenged me to come up with a way to make it work on this blog. Challenged, I went hunting for a way to blog about the poker game and apply it to blogging.

I accepted the challenge.

Blogging is Like Playing in a Poker Game…

For me, the poker tournament was like blogging as we start out all excited, thrilled with the risk and adventure. We publish a few blog posts, fishing around for our blogging voice, and not much happens, but we learn as we play. Then comes the big win when we score, publishing something that proves interesting enough for some big traffic blogs to link to us and send their traffic our way. Our careful betting and gambling has paid off. Lessons learned, we win!

As we become more comfortable with the risks in betting, the excitement begins to wear off. Some call it boredom, others call it stagnation. It’s just the same old same old and blogging becomes work. The hands we are dealt aren’t winners but they aren’t losers, and we bet conservatively, waiting for that bit of excitement.

As I played conservatively with my mediocre hands in the tournament, three different times other players at the table turned up a pair of aces with confidence. Everyone at the table knew cheered them on, also sure they were the next winners – except those betting against them. On the last dealer card, they lost to different combinations of two pairs, a set of three, and a flush while everyone, including the losing player with the pair of aces, was stunned by the loss.

To break out of the boredom, we push the blogging envelop and write specifically for our readers, trying to manipulate a big traffic spike again and again. We study the most popular posts on our blog and on other blogs and try to repeat the success. When you bet your blog with posts designed to bring in traffic, you take a risk that often doesn’t pay off. Each of these three players bet everything on the aces and were out of the game when they lost.

When the three final players of the tournament went into their final rounds, these were the players whom I had watched play well, but play conservatively, taking risks when the win was assured and holding back when they weren’t sure, testing the waters as they went, accumulating small but substantial wins along the way. Bored with the game, I could have held out longer, like them, but bored, I didn’t take the risks that would have kept me going. In the end, just two places shy of a winning position, I stepped out of the game, hurt by my lack of interest in the game.

Finding the balance for the long run not the short haul is difficult. A blog is not a five post run. So many jump in thinking they have tons to say, they say it all in the first five posts, then wonder what there is to write about next, having expended all their energies with their first few bets. It’s the balance between generating content, interest, and enthusiasm over the long term with the occasional wins that keeps a blog going. And wins the pot in the end.

LTPact 2008

Having accepted and completed the challenge, I thought you might enjoy some photographs of the LTPact Conference in Las Vegas. The images include a few of the speakers, a private party in one of the sponsor suites, Russ Merlin magician and comedian at a luncheon, various attendees, and the poker tournament on the last night.

And I encourage you all to step out of your comfort zone from time to time to explore the unknown around you. You never know how it will pay off on your blog when you gamble just a little bit.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.