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Civic Duty

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… have you?

WordCamp Birmingham Notes

Note: I had intended to post this Monday night, but work has been crazy-busy this week and Jim’s having a bit of a site snafu, so spare time has been pretty much nonexistent. LOL!

We had a wonderful time at WordCamp Birmingham this past weekend. A big thanks to Andre Natta and the B’ham team for all of their hard work. I’m most definitely looking forward to next year’s. The date is already set (September 26-27, 2009), so be sure to mark your calendar! Matt Mullenweg is slated to be a keynote speaker, so it should be awesome!!

The Future of WordPress

The first speaker we saw Saturday morning was Dougal Campbell with “The Future of WordPress.” He briefly covered WordPress’ version history and various milestones over the last few years. Thinking back, I think I started off with either version 1.0 or 1.1. I remember the upgrade to 1.2 being pretty hard, but that was nothing like having to re-do my theme for 1.5, LOL!

Ahh, those were the days … :lol:

He then moved on to the upcoming and much anticipated version 2.7. It’s due sometime next month. According to Dougal, there will be:

• more backend UI re-design;
• upgraded API, so you can upgrade themes, browse and install plugins and themes, etc.;
• comment improvements (many of these are covered in great detail on Otto’s blog) such as:
  • threaded comments
  • paged comments
  • auto-close comments
  • replying to comments from the Admin menu (a HUGE plus!!!)
• sticky posts;
• “Quick Edit” inline editing via Ajax for posts;
• HTTP-only cookies, a security feature;
• a new HTTP request API for plugin developers, replacing the current request API (Snoopy, I think?);
• and many others …

He also went over some possible features for future versions of WordPress:

• APP Importer: for Movable Type, Type Pad, Blogger, …
• A new “default” theme, possibly based on Sandbox or something similar to it. This will be replacing the current Kubrick theme.

Some features that he thinks are likely for version 2.8 (taken from the Trac Tickets) include:

• better page managment: select page order, hide pages
• expanded template functions: users, comments, attachments

We can look forward to seeing more CMS features, more social networking features, better widget management. Perhaps even OpenID (that would be sweet).

Documentation was brought up and he stated that there has been a big push (internally) to get the functions (I’m assuming he means the Codex?) better documented, updated, etc.

SEO For WordPress

The next speaker was Donna Fontenot, who had some really good insight on SEO for beginners. You can view her slides here. It is also available on her website in HTML format.

She started with a very simple recommendation as a first step for blogging: think first, write later. This can apply to so many aspects, and I admit it’s one that I don’t practice enough. You should actually USE the phrases you want to rank well for in blog posts. For best results, use them in prominent places:

• Document Title
• Body Headings
• In posts

Another stickler subject: Blog Visibility. In covering the WordPress Settings, she states that you should always make sure to have the privacy option set so that your blog is visible to everyone, including search engines.

Moving on to Permalink structure, the optimal setting is /%category%/%postname%/. For most blogs it’s ok to be different though. Dates, which are useless for SEO, are useful for users and are most generally preferred. It’s best to make sure that %postname% in there somewhere.

She talked a bit about URL canonicalization. Blog owners must make a choice: www or no www. Whichever you choose, you must consistently use it everywhere:

• Linking to your site
• correspondence
• email and IM signatures

Donna then moved on to categories. This is another thing I am doing wrong, LOL! She says it’s best to keep them as top-level important concepts, as opposed to tagging. Me, I tag and categorize all willy-nilly. Guess I’ll have to work on that. :mrgreen:

One of the plugins she highly recommended was All-In-One SEO Pack. I’ve heard about this plugin from several different people and from what I understand, it takes all the guesswork out of SEO for your blog. Donna says that the default settings work well.

Another plugin mentioned is: Excerpt Editor. This one gives extra control over excerpts, autogenerates excerpts (but allows overriding), prevents duplicate content between excerpts and full post, replaces the_content() with the_excerpt(), and more…

She spent a bit of time on two other post elements:

• Post titles:
  • use H1 or H2
  • Ok to use other tags, but H1 or H2 are best (use whatever suits your theme)
• Post slugs:
  • these should contain only most important words
  • and you should strip out “stop” words like ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, etc. These dilute the value of other keywords in the slug (permalink)

Other topics covered were:

• Post Image Optimization
• Interlinking
• Encouraging Sharing/Linking
• Participating and Reciprocation

Donna’s presentation not only had a lot of good information, she also made recommendations as to customizations to themes and various plugins that could help improve the “SEO-ness” of your site. I highly recommend checking out her site. You’ll find a LOT of useful information there that she covered at WordCamp, and a lot more!

Merging your work life with your blog life

The next speaker was David Griner. His presentation was pretty comical, poking fun at himself (he’s not even a WordPress user *gasp* hehe) and his profession. While this wasn’t really one of the topics that first piqued my interest, it did have a lot of useful information for anyone whose ever wondered what it could take to make blogging a full-time job.

It’s not something I could do, but I admire anyone who does it!

Topics included:

• Pros of Freelancing
  • schedule your own time
  • stockpile blog posts in advance
  • decent extra pay
  • very minor level of celebrity
  • opportunities for guest editing/posting
  • work in your underwear
• Cons
  • most people suck at time management
  • you’ll starve
  • no benefits or security
  • can mess with your taxes
  • easy to lose steam
  • neighbors get tired of seeing you in your underwear
• Finding the right blog
  • you’re probably already reading it
  • who owns it?
  • how many writers?
  • Whats the output?
• Getting the gig
  • get to know the writers or editors
  • comment often under the same name
  • write response posts on your blog
  • if you like the site, help drive traffic there
• Asking for the job
  • no harm asking about openings
  • always write at least three sample posts that they could run that day
  • make sure your e-mail is colon-rupturing in its awesomeness
  • get across your enthusiasm for the blog
  • talk about how it has evolved
  • say why they need you
  • what is the blog missing?

You can see these and more in his slides here.

Break!

At this point, we broke for lunch. Jim and I didn’t go back for the late afternoon sessions. I was nursing a migraine and football would be on soon. (Hey, I’m a ‘Bama fan first and WP geek second! )

I went back Sunday for a couple of the sessions: Brett Bumeter‘s “Windows Live Writer — Blogging with any Blogging Software Has Never Been Easier” and Mitch Canter‘s “Making WordPress Dance.”

Brett’s presentation covered the Windows Live Writer application. It’s not really my cuppa, but would be a great interface for anyone intimidated by the web UI for most popular blogging software/services.

Mitch’s presentation covered several topics I had previously researched and I was impressed with the amount of helpful information he covered. He also had a great list of plugins that he recommended. I would like to see more of him next year, if he attends. You can find his slides here.

The Media

From watching the WordCamp Bham twitters, I can see that a photo pool is available on Flickr, as well as a handful of the presentation slides gathered on SlideShare. I also see that WordCamp Birmingham also made the local news. You deserve it guys, great work!

Good stuff. Can’t wait until next year.

(Updated to include slides links, thanks Don @ authorize.net!)

In case you didn’t know …

Courtesy of Blue Star Chronicles, here’s a great side-by-side comparison of Palin and Obama covering a few points of interest.

	Sarah Palin	Barack Obama
Office being sought	Vice President	President of the United States and Leader of the Free World
Full name	Sarah Louise Heath Palin	Barack Hussein Obama II
Nickname	Sarah Barracuda	Barry Obama; “The One”
Public opinion	Smoking hot in a “naughty librarian” sort of way	May be The Messiah
Age	44	48
Children	5: two sons, three daughters	2: two daughters
Religion/Church attendance	Evangelical Christian; attends Juneau Christian Center when in Juneau and grew up attending Wasilla Assembly of God	Attended Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years, a “black liberation theology” church formerly led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright and governed according to the Black Value System
Current Job	Governor of Alaska	Junior Senator from Illinois
Previous Public Jobs	Mayor of Wasilla, AK (1996-2002); President of Alaska Conference of Mayors; City Council member (1992-1996)	State Senator (1997-2004); Community Organizer
Executive Experience	Governor for 2 years; Mayor for 10 years	None
Foreign Relations experience	Governor of state that borders two foreign countries (Canada and Russia)	Chaired Senate subcommittee on Europe but never called it into session; once gave a speech to 200,000 screaming Germans
Military Affairs experience	Commander in Chief of Alaska National Guard; Son is enlisted Infantryman in U.S. Army	None
Private Sector Experience	Sports reporter; Salmon fisherman	Associate at civil rights law firm
Speaking ability	Beautifully executed initial stump speech in Dayton, OH hockey arena without a teleprompter	An enter…wait–did you say without a teleprompter??
Spouse’s name	Todd Mitchell Palin	Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama
Spouse’s occupation	Salmon fisherman; Former North Slope production supervisor for BP Oil	Vice President for Community and External Affairs at University of Chicago Hospitals; former Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago; former Executive Director for the Chicago office of Public Allies; former Assistant to the Mayor of Chicago; former associate at Sidley Austin law firm
Reaction to spouse’s political success	Quit 17-year BP oil job when BP became involved in natural gas pipeline negotiations with wife’s administration	Promoted and given 160% pay raise by UofC hospitals within months of husband’s election to U.S. Senate; Employer received $1,000,000.00 federal earmark, requested by husband, after her promotion
Coolest thing about Spouse	Tesoro Iron Dog Snowmobile race champion (longest snowmobile race in the world); In 2008, while defending his championship, was injured when he was thrown 70 feet from his machine. He was sent to the hospital but still finished in fourth place	Sister of Oregon State University head basketball coach Craig Robinson
Most Courageous Moment in Public Service	Resigned in protest from position of Ethics Commissioner of Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in order to expose legal violations and conflicts of interest of Alaska Republican leaders, including the former state Attorney General and the State GOP Chairman (who was also an Oil & Gas Commissioner), who was doing work for the party on public time and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail.	Gave an anti-Iraq war speech to a crowd of anti-Iraq war demonstrators in Hyde Park in 2002
In Current Office Because…	Upset sitting Governor in GOP primary due to public support for her efforts to clean up corrupt government establishment	Republican opponent, who was leading in the polls, was forced to leave race after unsealing of divorce records exposed a sex scandal
Theme:	Change and Clean Government	Hope and Change; “Bringing Change from Outside Washington”
What they’ve done to live that theme:	Replaced entire Board of Agriculture and Conservation because of conflict of interest; Resigned from position of Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in order to expose corruption among members of own party	Selected 36-year incumbent Senator as running mate
Family Affairs	May have removed State Public Safety Commissioner as part of effort to protect sister in messy divorce and child custody battle	Often says, “I am my brother’s keeper”; Brother lives in a hut in Nairobi on $12 per year
Union affiliation	Union member, married to Union member	Endorsed by a union
Iraq and Troop Support	Formerly (pre-surge) critical of apparent lack of long-term strategy for Iraq; Visited wounded U.S. soldiers in Germany; visited AK National Guard soldiers deployed to Kuwait; Son deploying to Iraq on 9/11/08 as Army infantryman	Gave an anti-Iraq war speech to a crowd of anti-Iraq war demonstrators; almost visited wounded troops in Germany, but decided to go shopping in Berlin instead
Bipartisan/”maverick” credentials	Married to a non-Republican; Exposed corruption within own party; Campaigned for Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell against corrupt GOP congressman Don Young; Called out Sen Ted Stevens (R-AK) to “come clean” about financial dealings that are under fed investigation	Talks about bipartisanship
Legislative Record	Passed a landmark ethics reform bill; Used veto to cut budgetary spending; Prevented “bridge to nowhere” that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars.	Voted “present” over 100 times as IL state senator
How they dealt with corrupt individuals in home city/state	Exposed legal violations and conflicts of interest of Alaska Republican leaders; Campaigned against corrupt GOP Representative; Ran against and defeated corrupt incumbent governor in GOP primary	Launched political career in home of unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers (and still refers to him as a part of “mainstream Democratic Chicago”; Purchased home with help of convicted felon Tony Rezko
Guns	Lifetime member of NRA and avid hunter; video can be found on YouTube of Palin firing an M4 at a military firing range	Worked to pass legislation in Illinois that would prevent all law-abiding citizens from owning firearms
Earmarks	Opposed “Bridge to Nowhere” project; Said Alaska should avoid relying on federal money for projects; Campaigned against porker Don Young (R-AK) in 2008 primary	Secured federal earmarks for wife’s employer and for campaign bundlers
Abortion	Pro life; gave birth to 5th child knowing that he would have Down’s syndrome	Pro-choice; only IL state sen. to speak against the Born Alive Infant’s Protection Act, which required medical care to be given to live infants who survived abortions
Energy	Believes energy independence is a matter of national security; For drilling in ANWR, which is in her state	Says Americans should “get tune-ups” and “check tire pressure”; Says “we can’t expect the world to be okay with” our use of heating and air conditioning
Environment	Chair of Alaska Conservation Commission (2003-4); Announced plans to create sub-cabinet group of advisors to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in AK	Talks about the environment a lot
Athletic prowess	Runs marathons	Has reporters tailing him to the gym

Welcome aboard, Barracuda! :)

I had read a few rumors last night and was very pleased this morning to read (first on CNBC, then the Chicago Tribune) that Alaska Governor Sarah “Barracuda” Palin will be John McCain’s running mate.

SWEET!

Nicknamed “Barracuda” by her high school basketball team mates, Palin will, IMO, be a smart choice. Not only does she bring executive experience to the table, she’s a big supporter of our troops (a HUGE plus in my book!) as well as the global war on terrorism. She’s against wasteful government spending. Some prime examples of this: once she was in office, she got rid of the governor’s private plane and limo. She takes commercial flights and takes her SUV.

She has had a 80-90% approval rate. Guys will like her because not only is she pretty, she also hunts, fishes, and is an overall outstanding outdoorswoman. She’s a mother of 5, and will no doubt make a great Vice President.

In short: She is a man’s woman and a woman’s woman.

You can find a great bio here. Don’t take my word for it, look it up!

(H/T’s: Beth, Tammy Swofford, Bear Creek Ledger, Brian McDaniel, Zoey’s Blatherings)

Humpday Hilarities

Today’s funny comes courtesy of my mother:

Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old Texas rancher, whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be our President.

The old rancher said, “Well, ya know, Obama is a ‘post turtle’.” Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’ was. The old rancher said, “When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’.”

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain. “You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder what kind of a person put him up there.”

Magnolia Fest and pictures!

This weekend flew by WAY too fast. Friday I had a killer headache, plus rain came in later that evening so we didn’t get to setup our booth until Saturday morning. This turned out to be a real blessing in disguise as the tents that WERE setup Friday night were blown everywhere and the ones still standing had a ton of water on/in them! :shock:

It didn’t take near as long as I thought to set everything up Saturday morning, but I printed too few Soldiers’ Angels info cards to hand out. I had plenty of fliers and a handful of people stopped to look at the binder of pictures and PR materials, but the cards went out the fastest and in greater numbers. I can understand why, they’re small and can easily fit in a pocket rather than having to fold up (the much larger fliers).

Jessie participated in the demonstration put on by her karate school. She looked very fierce and determined, and performed really well! Jim’s mother came up from Montgomery with our niece and nephews, so it was great seeing them. (hehe, the boys used Jim as exercise equipment, so that was pretty funny) I also got to meet and spend a little time with Elaine and her husband from Painted Personalities.

As I’m typing this post, the pictures of the Alabama A-Day Game and this weekend’s Magnolia Festival are being uploaded to my Zooomr account. They seemed to have been having problems earlier this morning, but everything looks pretty good now for the most part (outside of the few hiccups that I have had to re-upload).

Humpday Hilarities

I snagged this from my Cotillion sister, Right Wing Sparkle, and had a good laugh over breakfast this morning. :mrgreen:

What’s in a name?

You know, when I was a teenager I absolutely abhorred my first name: Shannon. I hated that all of my school stuff had “Shannon” on it instead of “Nicki.” One year I absolutely insisted that my records be changed to reflect my nickname, which I’ve gone by all of my natural life. (The office ladies had a few giggles at my expense and sent me on my little defiant, albeit pissed off, way.) As I got older, I told myself, “Hey, my family has Scottish/Irish descent, and that’s definitely an Irish name. So chill.” I got over, for the most part.

However, to this day, I cringe if someone calls me by my full name and will insist upon being called “Nicki.”

I can’t help but laugh at all the hubbub about Obama and his full name being used in the media. “Hussein” Ok sure, we’ve known a few bad Husseins before. I can identify and sympathize … to an extent.

Seriously, what’s in a name? Would it be any more heinous if it were “Adolf”? Ok, maybe it would … but you get my point. If Obama were really that embarrassed or bothered by his name, he would have had it legally changed long ago. On the other hand, it gives conservatives something else to yuck about — and let’s face it, he’s given us plenty of material!

In an effort to show some sensitivity about his middle name, I propose we just refer to the first and last initials now: B.O. That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Yeah, I thought so too. In fact, it struck me so funny that I whipped up a little something in Photoshop to celebrate it:

If you hadn’t caught on by now, that man scares me. And it has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with his name.

Update: Per a very creative suggestion by Cookie, there’s now a follow-up image:

Snowballing

I’m now on Day three of the sickness. I feel like hammered shit. Throat hurts, head hurts, back hurts, and now I’m starting to cough uncontrollably. I can’t find any chocolate in this house (it’s my fault, I didn’t buy any so I wouldn’t eat it), my temperature’s back. And to top it all off, Fred Thompson just dropped out of the race.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

I should’ve stayed in bed …

Please do not elect this ghastly orc

This was posted by Cookie earlier today. Now, I’ve always known that the HilldaBeast held a lot of contempt for our fine men and women in uniform. I remember hearing all kinds of stories about her and her husband when he was governor of Arkansas, but this truly takes the cake. To think that some people want to elect HER as our President is truly horrifying!

Cookie’s NOTE:…having been in Law Enforcement for many years, and having attended various seminars and symposiums over the years with other folks in Law Enforcement, I had heard some of these stories from brother LEO’s long before this E-mail started circulating the Internet and Cyber-Space….

Subject: NICE TALK…

Please do not be offended by these ridiculously malicious and hate filled tirades and please forgive me for forwarding this trash. But… we should all realize the vicious part ‘she’ so cleverly hides, and the slanted media never mentions. Snopes says its so….. Quotations from the woman who WILL be the next President if enough of us don’t challenge the media-soft peddling. …and I shouldn’t have to use this “Foul Language” (gif warning) when quoting a perspective Presidential Candidate….

—————————–

WHAT A SWEET LADY

“Where is the G-dam f***ing flag? I want the G-dam f***ing flag up every f***ing morning at f***ing sunrise.”

–From the book “Inside The White House” by Ronald Kessler, p. 244 (Hillary to the staff at the Arkansas Governor’s mansion on Labor Day, 1991)
—————————-

“You sold out, you m***er f***er! You sold out!”

-From the book “Inside” by Joseph Califano, p. 213 – (Hillary yelling at a Democrat lawyer.)
—————————–

“F*** off! It’s enough that I have to see you sh**-kickers every day, I’m not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*dam job and keep your mouth shut.”

-From the book “American Evita” by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 – (Hillary to her State Trooper bodyguards after one of them greeted her with “Good Morning.”)

————————–

“You f** *ing idiot”

-From the book “Crossfire” p. 84 – (Hillary to a State Trooper who was driving her to an event.)
————————–

“If you want to remain on this detail, get your f***ing ass over here and grab those bags!”

–From the book “The First Partner” p. 259 – (Hillary to a Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)
————————–

“Get f***ed! Get the f*** out of my way!!! Get out of my face!!!”

–From the book “Hillary’s Scheme” p. 89 – (Hillary’s various comments to her Secret Service detail agents.)
————————-

“Stay the f*** back, stay the f*** away from me! Don’t come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f***ing do as I say, Okay!!!?”

-From the book “Unlimited Access”, by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 – (Hillary screaming at her Secret Serv ice detail)
—————————-

“Where’s the miserable c**k sucker?”

-From the book “The Truth About Hillary” by Edward Klein, p. 5 – (Hillary shouting at a Secret Service officer)
—————————

“Put this on the ground! I left my sunglasses in the limo. I need those sunglasses. We need to go back!”

-From the book “Dereliction of Duty” p. 71-72 – (Hillary to Marine One helicopter pilot to turn back while en route to Air Force One.)
—————————–

“Son of a bitch.”

-From the book “American Evita” by Christopher Anderson, p. 259 – (Hillary’s opinion of President George W. Bush when she found out he secretly visited Iraq just days before her highly publicized trip to Iraq)
—————————

“What are you doing inviting these people into my home? These people are our enemies! They are trying to destroy us!”

-From the book “The Survivor” by John Harris, p. 99 – (Hillary screaming to an aide, when she found out that some Republicans had been invited to the Clinton White House)
—————————

“Come on Bill, put your d**k up! You can’t f*** her here!!”

-From the book “Inside The White House” by Ronald Kessler, p. 243 – (Hillary to Gov. Clinton when she spots him talking with an attractive female at an Arkansas political rally.)
—————————–

“You know, I’m going to start thanking the woman who cleans the restroom in the building I work in. I’m going to start thinking of her as a human being” — Hillary Clinton

-From the book “The Case Against Hillary Clinton” by Peggy Noonan, p. 55
———————

“We just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices…. Government has to make those choices for people”

-From the book “I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan” by Thomas D. Kuiper, p. 20 – (Hillary to Rep. Dennis Hasert in 1993 discussing her expensive, disastrous taxpayer-funded health care plan.)
———————–

“I am a fan of the social policies that you find in Europe” —Hillary in 1996″

-From the book “I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan” by Thomas D. Kuiper, p.6

————————-

This ill-tempered, violent, foul-mouthed, hateful, abusive, beastly woman wants to be your president and have total control, as your Commander-in-chief of our Military, the very Military for which she has shown incredible contempt & disdain throughout her public life.

Surely we the people of the The United States can easily do better than this.

The references given for these quotes have been confirmed by Snopes, but the publications do not always give the source of the quotes.

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