Something that has confused many people is the distinction between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Let’s clear it up. WordPress.com is brought to you by some of the same folks who work on WordPress, the open source blogging software. In addition, WordPress.com utilizes the same WordPress software which you can download at WordPress.org. With WordPress.com the hosting and managing of the software is taken care of by the team here at Automattic. With WordPress.org you need to install the software on your own server or with a 3rd party provider.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE ON THE WORDPRESS SITE

Common Craft makes great videos:

WordCamp is coming to Seattle! If it’s anything like the WordCamp I went to in San Francisco in May, it’ll be fantastic. Seriously. Fantastic.

Check out their web site, sign up for Twitter and Facebook, and go!

www.wordcampseattle.com

central.wordcamp.org/

WordCamp is a conference type of event that focuses squarely on everything WordPress. Everyone from casual end users all the way up to core developers show up to these events. These events are highlighted by speeches or keynotes by various people.

Click here to read my post about the San Francisco WordCamp in May, and here for my illustrious meeting with Tim Ferriss.

“I heard about this thing called the Internet. I thought, That sounds kind of interesting. The first thing I did is I actually picked up the phone and dialed 411, and I said, I’d like the number for the Internet, please. And the operator is like, What?”
Sky Dayton (Sky Dayton later founded EarthLink, an Internet-service provider, in 1994)

There is a great article in the July 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, An Oral History of the Internet : How the Web Was Won, by Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb. (I know, I know it was printed a year ago and I am just now writing about it, so what, you got a problem with dat??)

Fifty years ago, in response to the surprise Soviet launch of Sputnik, the U.S. military set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency. It would become the cradle of connectivity, spawning the era of Google and YouTube, of Amazon and Facebook, of the Drudge Report and the Obama campaign. Each breakthrough—network protocols, hypertext, the World Wide Web, the browser—inspired another as narrow-tied engineers, long-haired hackers, and other visionaries built the foundations for a world-changing technology. Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb let the people who made it happen tell the story…..

The article is fascinating and well-done – give yourself about 45 minutes to read it, or, a few minutes to surf it. I hadn’t really thought about how the internet got started – hasn’t it always been here? Of course I had heard that Al Gore “made it”, which never made any sense and that is completely explained in the article, but the real history and a who’s who? Not a clue.

Click here to go the the article on the Vanity Fair site and read all about it. From the three “Founding Fathers”, Mosiac (first browser), the browser “war”, to AOL, YouTube and Google.

I highly recommend signing up for Brian Johnson’s Philosophers Notes.
Brian is offering 100 of them for $47 – which is a fantastic deal! I LOVE them and have made reading one part of my daily routine. I find them a great way to start the day.

Today’s Note is The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

“Think Big and you’ll live big. You’ll live big in happiness. You’ll live big in accomplishment.Big in income. Big in friends. Big in respect… Start now, right now, to discover how to make your thinking make magic for you. Start out with this thought of the great philosopher Disraeli: “Life is too short to be little.”
~ David J. Schwartz from The Magic of Thinking Big

Here’s what Brian says about the Notes:
Think: Mini-CliffsNotes for Self-Development Books!

The easiest way to describe PhilosophersNotes: they’re kinda like mini-CliffsNotes for self-development books or “Concentrated wisdom for your hero’s journey.”

Have you noticed that in any given book, there are usually 5-20 REALLY “Big Ideas”—those life-changing gems that really make an impact in your life?!? (… those pages are usually all marked up, underlined, starred, highlighted and all that goodness in my books! )

Well, what I’ve done is opened up my favorite books, gone straight to those pages with the BIG IDEAS and created “PhilosophersNotes” that quickly give you the inspiring gems along with my thoughts on how these ideas have impacted my life and how they can impact yours.

Brians notes cover all sorts of books, from Secrets of the Millionaire Mind to Pema Chodrons The Places That Scare You, something for every mood!

So, go sign up now and start getting them! Jeeze, what are you waiting for?

Brian Johnson’s Philosophers Notes

I flew down to San Francisco at the end of May and went to WordCamp San Francisco with my brother Chris. Chris works for a gigantoramous tech company and was interested in finding out what WordPress was all about. It was great to go with him, just made the event all the more better, and he thought it was stellar as well. Plus I got quality face time with the niece and nephews

The event was $25, and for that we got: breakfast, snacks, beverages all day, an amazing lunch, a party after, a T-shirt and a bunch of bling. AWESOME!

Oh yeah, I also got to hear Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, speak about the company, future plans and current amazing things. Matt is 26 and is, quite frankly, adorable.

In addition to Matt, I heard Tim Ferris of 4 Hour Work Week fame, Matt Cutts - head of the webspam team at Google, Dave Gray – founder of XPLANE, Steve Souders – performance guru at Google, Scott Porad – CTO of the infamous lolcats, & failblog, and John Lilly – CEO of Mozilla, his company makes a little browser called Firefox.

Everyone spoke for about 45 minutes to an hour. There were more speakers, but they were doubling up, one upstairs, one downstairs, speaking at the same time, so I had to choose.
You can see the entire line-up here:
2009.sf.wordcamp.org/speakers

Go here to see videos from the SF Camp:
wordpress.tv

Everything about this conference was first rate, from the venue to the speakers. Where else can you have some of the head people from Google show up and tell you how to improve your SEO rankings and performance overall? Or have the head of Mozilla talk about what it’s like to keep Firefox ahead of the game?

Did I mention there was also a Genius Bar there that many of the speakers were at so you could personally gab with them?

I especially loved Dave Gray – I thought he was fascinating and could have listened to him for another hour or two.

Also, the next day, Sunday, there was a Developers Day. I didn’t stay because it was over my head, but anyone that is into the inner workings of WordPress, writing Plug-Ins or Themes, etc…would have loved it. I am more “front-end” designer but thought I could take notes for my developer, however I quickly glazed over…

WordCamp has conferences all around the world. Check out their main site for more info on a Camp coming to your neighborhood.
In September, WordCamp comes to Seattle – will I be there? Absolutely!

WordPress links:

wordcampseattle.com

2009.sf.wordcamp.org

WordPress Videos - go here to see videos from WordCamp San Francisco

WordCamp Central