Bell South Angered at New Orleans Free WIFI System – May Penalize The City

According to a story in the Washington Post, Angry BellSouth Withdrew Donation, New Orleans Says, an agreement to donate a BellSouth building to the city, for the police force, courts, and other city offices, has been nixed due to the announcement that the city of New Orleans will launch a free wireless network to encourage […]

The Secret Recipe of Comment Spam Comments

Mr. Louis Vuitton just sent me a message in my blog comments I’d like to share with you. I share this touching message because it is highly educational when it comes to the art of spam comments, and serves to remind us of why we love having Akismet, the best comment spam fighter, on our […]

WordPress Codex Night Success and PDX Saturday Codex Party

Last night’s PDX WordPress Meetup Group: WordPress Codex Night was a resounding success. In just under two hours, 130 changes were made to the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users. On the informal WordPress Documentation Team Task List, 49 “things to do” were added which will become deleted files and pages, redirects, new […]

Security and Protection: Understand the Social in a Crime Network and How to Protect Yourself

While the following is a bit off-topic, my head is spinning with all the layers and networks I’ve uncovered within this recent experience. A friend of mine called this a combination assembly line meets Wikipedia of crime social networks. It begins with my car being broken into and my purse stolen a few months ago, […]

What’s Involved for a Speaker at a WordCamp Event

One of the greatest honors in my professional life is being asked to speak or keynote at a WordCamp or related event. I speak at professional conferences all the time, but there is something precious and wonderful about a WordPress Community event. I love attending them as well as actively participating in them. I’ve helped […]

Blog Bashing: Beware Complacency

In “5 Ways to Rid Complacency From Your Blog” on Daily Blog Tips, Bob Bessette writes about how to mix things up in the new year on your blog: If you’ve owned a blog for a while there’s a good chance that complacency may have already set in. Dictionary.com defines complacency as “a feeling of […]

Designing WordPress Themes For the Slowing Web

Jonathan Bailey of the Blog Herald wrote about Surfing the Slow Web, a summary of his recent experience trying to connect to the Internet as an evacuee from Hurricane Gustav. While most web designers are pushing the limits of heavy handed design towards high bandwidth, the world still doesn’t work that fast or wide. According […]

Blog Challenge: Describe Your Computer Setup – Then and Now

This week’s blog challenge is to blog about your computer setup as it was “then” in the early days of your computer life, and how it is now, in your modern technology life. What computer tools are you dependent upon for your blog that surround you on your desk? Do you podcast? What do you […]

How to Access Banned WordPress.com Blogs

As discussed in WordPress.com Banned Again: Why Aren’t You Concerned?, WordPress.com continues to be a target for censorship and blocking from various countries and groups around the world attempting to penalize the whole for the “wrongs” of the few the courts or governments decide to penalize, those cutting off thousands of blogs from access. I […]

What You Need To Know About WordCamp Dallas

I and a couple hundred other WordPress and blogging enthusiasts are gathering outside of Dallas, Texas, for a foot stomping and roaring great time this Saturday and Sunday. You better be there. These are some things you will need to know about WordCamp Dallas. 1. Register Now or Never Registration is required. There will be […]

Shopping for a Blogging, Traveling Laptop

My laptop has reached the four year birthday and I’m ready for a new one. Every computer and laptop I’ve owned I’ve pushed beyond it’s capabilities from day one. I will never forget the first computer my husband and I bought “together”. Within three days, I’d filled the 2 gig hard drive, the largest one […]

Blog Struggles: Surviving the When Blogging Goes Bad Blues

It’s been a hell of a day. I’m sure you’ve had them. When every other word out of your mouth should have started with F or S but didn’t because you “grinned and bared it” for the grace of others. Okay, let’s be honest, you didn’t grin, you bit the bullet. We all have these […]

Blog Struggles: Surviving Offline Downtime

I travel a lot as part of my work and there are many times when access to the Internet just isn’t possible. Currently, our temporary residence in Oregon is on a farm over 30 minutes from “civilization”. The farm has satellite Internet, so snow, big storms, freezing fog, power outage, or a glitch in the […]

WordCamp Hamburg, Germany

I asked my friend, Ian of Letters Home To You living in Hamburg, Germany, to report on this past weekend’s WordCamp Hamburg. Unfortunately, he could only report on the first day of the two day event. Call it a mash-up of users, developers, code freaks and the rest of us, people like me who could […]

Blog Struggles: It’s The Rituals That Help Us Focus

I travel. A lot. As I type this, I’ve just flown back from Israel, over 24 hours on planes disconnected from my computer and the Internet and my life after two weeks in one of my favorite places, where every day brought new meetings, interviews, explaining blogging, talking WordPress, meeting old friends, making new friends, […]