Just like WordCamp last year, I had a hard time finding the right gate. However, this time I have improved! It took me two tries to find the right one, compared to three tries last year. Yahoo to that!

I have my cousin with me so I am not scared of getting lost. We had our temperature check upon entering the building. Then we went to the third floor for the registration.

I though we would win something for being early, just like last year, but there’s no price for early birds this year. Well, I’d still choose being early though, because then I have the choice of where to sit.

Upon entering the main area, we have chosen the best location we could find and then have our pictures taken. The advantage of not being alone, is having someone to take your picture without asking.

So while waiting:

* I enjoyed the free Wi-Fi.

* Picture taking with my cousin.

* Picture with Blogie.

* Picture of a banner on stage.

* Eat cookies.
I wish there was free water in the area.

At last, the event started.

MC Migs
Migs gave a joke that those who have laptops who are using the power outlet would be fined with Php 50 and someone actually took her plug out. BWA HA HA HA

Head Organizer Blogie.
Blogie proudly informs everyone how solid the Mindanao Bloggers are. I hope Iloilo Bloggers would be as solid.

WordPress guy, Lebens

Here, I knew a lot of WordPress Family that are not as popular as WordPress and the equation:

WPMU != WordPress

Firefox Tshirt give-away

Marku
I learned about WP Super Cache and RSS Footer

Matt just gave a video message.
Everyone was Oooohh

Enjoying the event.
My cousin was teasing me because as a fat lover, there was a fat guy seated next to me, but he transferred in front

Danilo Arao
If I were to interview a writer, I would ask: “What is the essence of journalism?”

Seth, the Mozilla guy

OPEN WEB is IMPRESSIVE!

Lunch Time:

The SALAD was delicious! Overall, food was great. You should have seen my plate. It was wiped clean.

I won a sticker

Showing off our rubber bracelet

Jeff

WordCamp Tshirt, free give-away

Gail

Karla

Interview

Of course, I wouldn’t let the event pass, without a picture from the stars.

Wordpress, Me and Mozilla

Migs and I

Since I was able to attend the WordCamp last year, I can’t help but to compare.

• I was disappointed of the WordCamp badges this year.
  • I don’t know if I have written babsy.com during my registration, as what was written on my badge but I am pretty sure my blog is supposed to be http://www.babsy.name – I checked the .com and it was like a porno site, so not good for me.
  • Mine was better than my cousin though, because mine was computerized while my cousins was handwritten, so we asked why and they informed us that they had a hard time looking for it so it might have been lost, so they just created one for her like the ones they made for walk-in registrant. Unfair, right?
  • Also when they gave us our badges, my cousins badge was without a lanyard. I informed them that we were both registered online, so they got one for her. There are others who have no lanyards as well, so somehow I was thinking that the organizers wasn’t prepared.
• Souvenirs was just in card envelope while we had it on bag last year.
• Wi-Fi connection was intermittent.
• The power socket in my area was broken during the morning, so some have no place to plug-in their laptop.

In summary, I was expecting better because this year we actually paid compared to free one last year. Yet, I have seen more flaws. I hope I could help out next year.

Just this morning I got an email from Friendster that they have already finished the migration. This is the email content:

Hello Junelle,

We’d like to introduce you to your new blog on Friendster! We’ve been very busy building out Friendster Blogs 2.0 and your blog has been moved to the new blogging platform. It’s ready for you to customize, edit, and add even more content to it!

Some things you should know about your new blog:

- Your blog has been moved to the new platform.
- It is likely that your blog layout or colors may not appear exactly as they were on your old blog, you can edit or add new customizations to your blog by clicking the ‘Design’ tab or ‘Change Theme’ button when you access your blog from your home page.
- All of the photos you’ve uploaded to your old blog will soon be moved to your new blog. When they are moved, they will be in your Blogs Media Library (Manage –> Media Library). Don’t worry, we’ll move all your photos for you!  We plan to have this complete by September 17th.
- If you experience any inconsistencies with your blog during the next few weeks, please bear with us and please do let us know what you find so we can build a better product!

To get started with your new blog, please go to:

http://junelle.blog.friendster.com/

We look forward to your participation and your feedback on our new blogs property. We value our global community and members like you who make Friendster the success that it is!

If you have questions or need additional assistance, please contact Customer Support by clicking “Send us a Question” from our Help page.

Thanks!
The Friendster Blogs Team

All I could say is that it was a great move, my first blog ever is now on a platform I love the most!

My post was approved and I was able to get my WordCamp pass.

Since, I was so excited I didn’t notice the typo error at first. I just found the error the day before the event. But it was just a minor error. No Biggy.

The morning of September 6, 2008 my father woke me up at 3:30 AM to be ready to go to the airport. I didn’t complain (wow it’s a miracle) even if I set my alarm at 4:30 AM.

I was having this fear that the flight might be delayed and I will be late for the event. Luckily, my flight arrived Manila 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. Thanks to Cebu Pacific, who was also one of the sponsors of the event.

It took me 3 tries to actually find the right gate to enter for the WordCamp venue. I am from Iloilo and I am not familiar of places in Manila, so that is excusable. Anyway, I am not late. So, when I finally arrived at the right gate, I was relieved. I am not lost – Yahoo!

Then while I was registering my equipment for security, my team mate arrived at the entrance. I was happy to see her, finally I have someone to talk to.

There was only a few people falling in line for the WordCamp, but security was slow in processing some things, but since everyone is so excited, they didn’t seem to mind.

Upon entering we were given our badges and some freebies. It was really cool and I was so happy.

Since, we are one of the first to arrive, we get to choose where to sit. We were able to find a good location.

I was situated on the mid part, so I could see the stage clearly.

The first lesson I attended was Creating WordPress Themes & CSS Power by Gail Villanueva. I have learned a lot from Gail;

• Ang hirap maging speaker pag walang laser pointer na may projector na gamit.
• Ang hirap pag hindi na testing yung projector, kasi yung ibang info ay hindi nakikita. Importante pa naman sana.
• Kapag naguguluhan ang speaker, nagugulo ang speech, nagugulo din yung listeners.
• And most importantly, http://browsershots.org/ to check your work on all the browsers available.

Peace tayo Gail ha! Nagulo kasi ako lagi kang nagsasabing naguguluhan ka

Then Building A Blogging Community by Blogie Robillo. I asked Blogie for some tips on how to get sponsors for the event of a Blog community but he said, it is all in the skill and it would take a whole new seminar for it.

and WordPress & SEO by Hans Koch. He taught us some great plugins to be used.

Thanks to another sponsor Chowking that made our tummy full.

Well, it was a small world indeed because I have seen a relative on the venue. He was in charge of the security during the event.

Finally, after lunch. The most awaited event is to hear the father of WordPress – Matt Mullenweg. For The Future of WordPress by Matt Mullenweg.

Matt has given us some previews of the great features of the WordPress 2.7 to be released this November. (NOTE: I like the drag and drop feature … THE BEST!)

And Demystifying Google Analytics by Aileen Apolo.

Of course, I wouldn’t leave the event venue if I didn’t get to have a pic with the Man of the event Matt Mullenweg.

I wasn’t able to finish the whole event because I was scared to be caught on traffic and not able to make it on my flight going home.

My cousin was so happy to fetch me because I bought a shirt for her.

After all that has been said and done. It was a day that really made every hour meaningful!

Thanks to Mindanao Bloggers who organized the WordCamp Philippines. It was the greatest experience of my life so far, and I get to see the STARS of my world. Plus, the souvenirs.

Great thanks to my client Promet Host for financing my travel expenses. It has made me very happy to be a part of Promet Source – A great company to be with!

If you are looking for a hosting – dedicated hosting that would have the best customer service or support, check Promet Host. Our main priority is our customer’s satisfaction!

To give you more infor of why I was convinced, here’s the video to show the features added that for me is a sure win!

However, this might be called an Upgrade, but I am not loving it. In fact, I am losing love on WordPress. Perhaps, seeing how powerful Drupal could be. WordPress seems to be out of place.

The design is confusing me!

WP Themer Kit is a tool that makes WordPress Theme. So, if you are a WordPress fan like me, and you are having a hard time making or choosing a theme you want, make one yourself. This kit will help you make or create a theme very easy.

The website has video on how to use the kit. As I said on my former posts, I like video’s because in that way, I would understand or absorb the information easily.

Steps:

• Download the plug-in from http://www.irisco.it/?page_id=28
• Unzip it and put the wp-statpress on your WordPress plug-in through FTP (../wp-content/plugins)
• Log-in to yourWordpress account, go to Plugins.
• Look for StatPress, then click activate.
• DONE

Now, you would see StatPress on your Dashboard.

Steps:

• Download the sitemap generator for wordpress at http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/
• Unzip the downloaded file.
• Using FTP, upload the google-sitemap-generator folder in your wordpress plugin (/wp-content/plugins)
• If everything has been uploaded, log in to your wordpress account.
• Go to Plugins, look for Google XML Sitemaps. Click Activate.
• Once the plugin has been activated, click “Options” >> “XML-Sitemap”
• Build your sitemap by clicking the “click here” on the instructions.
• Now, you have created a sitemap.
• All you need to do is add it on your Google webmaster tools, for Google to work on it.
• Log in to your Google webmaster account https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview
• Input your website into the text box, then click ADD SITE
• Once added, below the sitemap, click “add”
• Choose type: “Add General Web Sitemap”
• Input sitemap.xml on the text box, click “Add General Web Sitemap”
• DONE

Video:

I like WordPress compare to Joomla and Drupal, because if you compare it to the mobile phones WordPress is like Nokia; user friendly. This is also the reason why all of my blogs are on a WordPress platform. I do recommend it to every bloggers I get to chat with.

WordPress has a lot of free plugins and themes that are available for downloads. The WordPress itself is also free for download and it is so easy to install.

Steps:

• Download the latest WordPress from http://wordpress.org
• Unzip the downloaded file
• Create a database from your hosting (remember the database name, username and password)
• Open the WordPress folder, look for the wp-config-sample.php and open it with the editor that you are comfortable using (notepad, dreamweaver, crimson, etc.)
• Edit the hostname, username and password. Save the file as wp-config.php on the same folder as wp-config-sample.php
• Using an FTP (filezilla, smartftp, etc.) upload all the files within the WordPress folder (not the folder itself) to your website.
• After everything has been uploaded, open your web browser and go to your website and it will take you into a step by step installation.
• Click install
• Give your blog a name and input your email address (this is important because your log in info will be emailed to you).
• You will be given username: admin and a password. Copy the password and click log in.
• Log in to your account, click “My Profile” at the upper right of the screen.
• Change your password into something you could remember.
• DONE

You have now a WordPress blog on your own domain and hosting.

If my instructions are not that clear for you, here are the video’s and websites that might help:

For a complete instructions on how to install WordPress in two options: http://www.easykiss123.com/?p=12

For another video tutorial: http://www.optiniche.com/blog/view.php?v=wp-install&w=773&h=472

• You could get the plugin at Lester Chan’s Programming Portfolio.
• Look for the “WordPress Plugin: WP-PostViews” and download the latest version.
• Check the documentation for instructions on how to install the plugin.
• Unzip the downloaded file.
• Use FTP and upload the “postviews” folder into your wp-content/plugins folder.
• Log in to your wordpress admin account >> Plugins >> activate the WP-PostViews plugin.
• Go to Presentation >> Theme Editor >> find ” <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>” below it, add “ <?php if(function_exists(‘the_views’)) { the_views(); } ?>” to the place where you want the number of views to show.
• DONE

Check the site for more info.