I seemed to have come to Melbourne at a great time - Priscilla the Musical is still on going, one of my favorite travel writer Peter Moore is launching his latest book in Australia, and the event I attended last Saturday, WordCamp Melbourne.

WordCamp is a gathering of Wordpress users talking about (you guessed it) Wordpress and blogging. Among the speakers were Alex Shiels of Automattic (who quite succinctly told us how big Wordpress is), James Farmer of Edublogs (who organized WCM07 and quite a jolly person), Darren Rowse of Problogger.net (how can this be a blogging event without Mr. Rowse? He’s a very nice, down to earth guy, by the way, and he even granted my odd request of posing with my Pinky St doll), Christine Davis of Neato.co.nz (developer of the Ultimate Tag Warrior, which I’m currently using), and Alister Cameron, the self-proclaimed blogologist (who was wearing a TinTin in Vietnam t-shirt, which had me racking my brains whether TinTin ever went to Vietnam).

Darren Rowse mentioned in passing that Melbourne bloggers have been talking about having one of these gatherings for a long time, and this is the first time it has pushed through. Also, when I asked him if he gives talks on blogging a lot, he said he gets invited to talk overseas, but hardly in Australia.

Apart from the talks given by the speakers, there were also round table discussions, where in participants get to talk among themselves regarding a topics pertaining to Wordpress or blogging. Topics like choosing a blogging platform, selling plugins, online reputation management, themes, and blogging as new media. I joined the plugins table, reputation management and new media.

The online reputation management discussion was facilitated by Gerry McCusker, a Public Relations Analyst. We discussed how organizations can optimize blogs for better public relations. I found myself drifting off at certain points, thinking of how certain individuals can hurt their reputation through online self-publishing.

When the time came for the last round table, I eagerly headed to the table set for the new media discussion. Disappointingly, there were only three of us there. Hmmm, as I told Gerry, who was also at the table, this table would’ve been full had it been in Manila.

Overall, it was a great, enlightening event. I was able to see the “blog culture” in Melbourne, and how people are utilizing it. It was great to meet people with such passion for blogging. Oh, and Lucio, too bad you left early…you could’ve won a Wordpress shirt

Pictures from WordCamp Melbourne

Darren Rowse talking about how to make money by blogging

Alister Cameron telling us about all the fun to be had with Sandbox

James Farmer sharing his trick for increasing your multi-user blog from 1 to 1,000

Christine Davis differentiating between tags and categories

The panel of speakers with Alex Shiels answering question from the audience

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Surprised much? (If you’re new to Just Wandering, please don’t mind this geeky post. Do check out my other entries. There’s a handy list to your right, listing my 10 most wanted posts.)

As much as I love Chris Frazier’s Subtle theme, it was time for a change. I originally intended this theme for my work blog, but I liked it so much that I just took it for myself. Some notable changes:

1. The header image changes with each refresh. Yup, there’s about 18 different headers. This is basically a bigger version of the “Through my eyes” flickr badge thing I had in my previous layout. All the photos appearing in the header were taken with my beloved Canon Powershot A70. Most of the shots were taken around the Philippines, with a couple taken in Thailand. If you’d like to see more of my travel pictures, they’re up at my flickr.
2. My profile picture beside the about me blurb also changes with each refresh. Clicking on the picture takes you to my flickr page.
3. I’ve decided to trim the junk in my sidebar. However, I haven’t really decided which should stay and which should go. So far, all that you see to your right are the ones staying. I’m definitely putting the list of my favorite travel blogs back. I just have to go sleep a bit.
4. This layout is best viewed in Mozilla Firefox and Opera. It’s tolerable in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.

Just Wandering’s new theme is called Leia, designed by Kapikua. Sadly, it’s not widget enabled, but I’m still loving it.

So…any comments? Suggestions? Violent reactions? I would really like to hear what you think

Popularity: 18% [?]

It’s one of those rare moments when I’m at home and awake during the day, and what better way to pass the time than to make necessary blog updates?

1. Wordpress upgrade to 2.2.2. The people at WP announced another security update to the WP2.2 Getz. You can download the complete installation file from the Wordpress download page.
2. Updated list of active plugins. I’ve also added the subscription information in the About Justwandering.org page.
3. Updated the About Me page. Following Darren Rowse’s advice to Conduct an About page audit, I’ve decided the two page I had before was uncessesary and trimmed it down to one.
4. Trimmed category listing. There’s just too many! What the hell was I thinking?
5. Added e-mail subscription form. If you look to your right, you’d see the not-so-new e-mail form for subscribing to JustWandering updates. I figured nobody scrolls all the way down to the bottom of the page to see the form there.
6. Added new travel blog links. They’re a great and fun read, check them out

Popularity: 15% [?]

I’ve just upgraded my blog to the most current WordPress version, 2.2 Getz. Due to the popularity of the Sidebar Widgets plugin, they decided to incorporate it with the basic installation.

Unfortunately, since my blog’s theme is terribly Widget-dependent, it went crazy. Well, not totally, but I’m still trying to figure out how to make it look like what it was before. Rather, how text in the sidebars were aligned. I’m picky that way.

The archive and comment boxes are in perfect working condition, but don’t panic if you suddenly see a wayward ad or entry list here and there. It’s just me breaking my blog for the nth time.

Enjoy!

[edit] Christopher Frazier, author of the Subtle theme has announced that he will be working on a fix for the Widget bugs soon. Since I don’t want to break my blog more often than necessary, I shall leave this as is. Or until I get restless again and start murdering the PHP codes.

Popularity: 9% [?]