Chris Scott’s Blog

Warning: this post is long. That is all. Updated: Changed the post title from “Thoughts on BlogOrlando 2007″ since I’ll likely do I’ve written a separate post with thoughts. This is more of a recap and the title now says so.

First Some Background

Last year was the inaugural year for BlogOrlando. Josh had a name and I had the domain name so he asked if he could use it. Of course, I obliged and told him that if he needed help I could do anything from programming to printing agendas, to taking out the trash.

I ended up compiling the registration list into an Excel spreadsheet that Jeremy used for making the badges which was great fun. Really, just ask him I and my coworkers at the time manned the registration desk.

Last year, we had about 90 people show up which was great. The sessions were all rockin’ and Chris Heuer gave a great closing session about The Importance of Social Media. Go read that link–now–it is that good. I’ll wait…

Fast Forward

This year, Josh asked me to whip up some DB/PHP code to make the online registration a bit more high-tech. This made getting the info out much easier but due to either a lack of sleep or too many beers, I messed up when entering the t-shirt sized in the DB and instead of XL and XXL they ended up being XXL and XXXL. This wasn’t the case with the signup form since I had neglected to tie it into the DB (bad developer, no coffee!). Josh didn’t catch it when he went to order the shirts so if you signed up for an XL or XXL you got one size larger. So, you have me to thank for your new tent.

The planning crew was much larger this year with Alex, Danny, John, Darby and probably a few others I didn’t meet with or am forgetting helping out in various areas.

Thursday at Universal Studios

About 95 people signed up for this event and about 30-something showed up. As a result, we had more Universal Dollars per person than the $10 we were expecting. A group of us pooled ours together with some additional from an anonymous source and went to the bar across from Margaritaville (since M’ville was closed for a private party) and managed to eat and drink a good chunk of it pretty quickly. After that, we went to Pat O’Brien’s and finished off the rest, adding a nice tip for our server. Turns out our server knew of Alex from his Sprit Airlines blog post (small world). The look on Alex’s face when she said she had read that post was priceless.

Friday Conference

I had the t-shirts, drink tix, and schedules with me so I showed up about 7:30 which was way too early after the margaritas the night before. A quick coffee fix helped and I meandered around trying to help people find registration and stood around being otherwise useless for a bit.

After Shel Israel’s keynote, I made my way down to the basement where the tech track was taking place. Josh asked me to be the track leader which means I had the job of making sure everything ran on time, gave the session leaders a heads-up when their time was nearly up and making sure everything kept moving. I did a horrible job on the timing at first since we got started a bit late and I wasn’t sure if we were sticking to the schedule or still taking our alloted time.

Blogging Basics Session

This was the first session in the tech track and the one I was leading. We covered most of the topics that I had outlined and the discussion was moving along pretty nicely for most of it. I hit one topic that fell flat (which I don’t recall) so we moved on. Other than that, I think it went pretty well but considering my vantagepoint maybe that is wishful thinking

For those that attended, here’s my ma.gnolia links to some of the sites we talked about and some we didn’t get a chance to discuss (blogging tips sites). Also, if you have any feedback for me, please leave a comment.

Blogging Tools Session

Judson Colllier let this session which was very lively, packed with questions, and could have gone on for hours if we had the time. One of the older attendees joked with me asking if they had to let Judson out of high school to come talk to us. While I don’t think they meant anything by it, I was tempted to tell them to be careful since he may be their boss in the next couple years

WordPress Session

Mark Jaquith, one of the contributing devlopers on the WordPress project gave us some info on what’s coming in WordPress 2.4, what’s new in 2.3 and answered a slew of questions about what WordPress can do and why someone should use it. Many of the attendees already used either wordpress.com or hosted their own WordPress install. I think a few people using other platforms were very interested in checking out switching to WordPress.

Lunch

By noon, I really needed food and Urban Flats hit the spot.

Design On a Dime Session

How do you design a site if you don’t have the resources of the pros? Jeremy Harrington showed us some tools and shared his thoughts on how to get a professional look without spending a lot of dough. Check out his ma.gnolia bookmarks for plenty of links and also his blog for some free icons. This was a hard topic to keep unconference-y since most of the attendees were novices looking for info but I think Jeremy did a good job of engaging the group where it made sense and soliciting input throughout.

Videoblogging Session

John Rife gave a great and funny video intro on videoblogging and then went through a brief tutorial on some popular videoblogs and some videoblogging tools. There was some great discussion about cameras, video hosting sites, and other topics that kept this moving right until the end. This was another session that could have gone on longer due to most of the attendees being relatively new to the topic.

Podcasting Session

Ryan Price showed the crowd what podcasts are, how to create them, and how to find/download them–all while recording his session for a podcast. Another topic the crowd was very interested in and there was plenty of discussion on the technology as well as how to use them for personal and business use. If you attended this session, check out Ryan’s follow up post and give him your feedback.

SEO Session

Mark joined us again to talk about search engine optimization. He did a good job of sticking to the core, whitehat SEO topics. There were a few people in the crowd with some good depth of experience here so the the discussion was pretty lively and involved at times. I had to try to cut the questions off a couple times before we could finally end this one.

Closing Session

Chris Heuer once again delivered the closing session. He talked about how business is becoming personal again and what that means for social media and business interactions with customers and employees. He closed by asking how many people take time to reflect every day/week/month/etc. on what they have done and what they want to do. Some good feedback from the audience, especially the guy show said that he does all the time with a 6 year old asking him constantly what he’s doing.

Happy Hour at Slingapour’s

I walked into Slingapour’s just in time to beat the rain, talked with a few people, and had a beer. Unfortunately, that’s all I had time for since I had to get home to dinner and get some sleep for the 15K the next morning. As it turns out I skipped the 15K since I still wasn’t feeling 100% after feeling like I was getting sick on Wed. Still, I’m glad I didn’t drink too much or stay out late since I’m sure I feel better for it now.

Final Thoughts

If you’re still with me, I thank you.

BlogOrlando 2007 rocked! Josh and the other organizers did a great job of getting everything and everyone ready for an event that at least trippled in size from last year. I didn’t attend any sessions other than the tech track, but from the feedback I heard that day/night and the blog posts I’ve seen since then, I think all the sessions were all good.

I’m looking forward to 2008 already.

Technorati Tags: blogorlando, blogorlando2007, orlando

Wow! Seriously, WOW!

Not only was I impressed by the sheer number of people attending but most all of the presentations were both great topics and well-presented. I agree with Alex that a bit less slideshow and more conversational or demo-type talks would have been nice.

Gregg, Larry, and everyone else that organized this did a great job and for an inaugural event–I don’t think you could ask for more (and if you are, you’re just being greedy ). The schedule was packed and everyone did a good job of keeping their talks to the limit and moving on quickly for the next speaker.

My suggestions for next year that I shared w/the group list:

• Twitter would have been cool for those of us that only had our cell phones on us or didn’t want to break out the laptop.
• Other than finding a venue with enough space, also look for a separate bar area. As it was yesterday, there wasn’t much “bar” in BarCamp since we couldn’t hang out there and chat.

Looking forward to the next BarCamp and Alex sharing the latest in cow orking

Technorati Tags: barcamporlando2007, barcamporlando, barcamp

For those of you that don’t read my beer blog, you may be interested to hear about Orlando Brewing’s Oktoberfest Orlando on September 15:

Orlando Brewing will celebrate Oktoberfest on Saturday, September 15. Authentic German food will be available starting at 6pm. Brewmaster Ed Canty will debut his Oktoberfest beer that evening, served in a commemorative mug you can keep (only $10, $4 for a refill). Live music with The Bavarians begins at 7pm. It will be the most fun this side of Munich!

For more information and directions, check out www.orlandobrewing.com. (407) 872-1117.

As I noted on my original post the 15th is shaping up to be a great day in Orlando with the Downtown Triathlon in the morning, UCF’s home opener vs. Texas at 3:30 PM and Oktoberfest that night. The common thread tying the three together? Beer, of course!

Technorati Tags: orlando

Having been in Orlando for 17 years (ouch, feeling old now) rarely a day goes by that my world doesn’t seem a bit smaller. It just seems like every time I meet someone we have a friend in common.

Just today, I’m reading the paper version of the Orlando Sentinel (yes, John and I are the only ones under 50 that do) and I see an article about Alex, written by Etan, featuring quotes from Josh–all three are people I have talked with in the past week. Then I read the photo credit and see it was taken by Julie Fletcher who I know through the Y run club (and last talked to when she was taking photos at the iPhone launch at Millenia). Now all I need to do is meet the Boswell’s (from the article) and the circle will be complete.

Rand at SEOmoz has a good recap (I’m assuming this since I’m not at SES) about the paid link debate. We discussed this for a bit last Friday at Likemind Orlando so I thought I’d throw it out here in case anyone wants to dig deeper.

Technorati Tags: seo, likemind orlando

For the Blogging Basics session at BlogOrlando, here’s the topics I’d like to cover:

• What makes a blog a blog?
  • Posts/Entries
  • Comments
  • RSS feeds
  • Trackbacks
• Starting a blog
  • Free hosts
  • Paid hosts
  • Wordpress on your current site
• Do’s and Don’ts
  • Linking
  • Commenting
  • Corporate Blogging Guidelines
  • etc. …

Is there anything missing you’d like to see in this session? I’ve added some links to my ma.gnolia bookmarks and tagged them blogorlando2007 (thanks to Jeremy Harrington for the idea) that we’ll probably cover or that may be interesting for those of you attending this session.

Also, I’d like to have those of you that are already blog-savvy attend this session if possible to help with the discussion. I understand that depending on the schedule there may be a session in another track you want to attend but please keep this one in mind.

Technorati Tags: blogorlando, blogorlando2007

After reading about Alex’s problems with Spirit Airlines, I figured I’d give the flip side and call out a company that has consistently (and recently) given me great service: AAA. I’ve had their service for about 6 years and have used their towing service twice.

The first time was in January when my radiator crapped out and I was stuck in a McDonald’s parking lot (closest place to coast to). I called and the operator first asked if I was in a safe place and out of traffic. Then, they took my information and gave me an estimate of 60 mins. for a truck to get there. That seemed a bit long, but I figured it would give me time to grab a coffee and water. About five minutes later, they called back and told me it would be 40 minutes until the truck was there.  About five minutes after that, they called to say it would be 20 minutes. At that point, I grabbed my coffee and water to come back and see the truck driver already there looking at how to load my truck up. The driver did his thing an took me and my truck to the shop.

The last time was yesterday. After being out of town for a week, my truck wouldn’t start. I did what I could by checking the fuses, making sure it had gas, and talking to it nicely and sending positive thoughts it’s way, but it wouldn’t catch. I did an internet request this time and about five minutes after I submitted it and received the confirmation email, I got a call to say it would be about 30 minutes until the truck was there. About 15 minutes later, the truck was there and the driver looked at a few things to see if he could get it working w/out having to tow it. Alas, it had to be towed. The driver pushed it out of my carport while I steered into the road so he could get the truck in front of it and he did his thing and confirmed where I wanted it taken and was off.

AAA did a few very easy things that really made dealing with them pleasant. First, when I called they made sure I was safe. Next, they gave me an estimate up front and then called each time that was revised. Finally, when the rubber hit the road so to speak, the drivers were very nice and professional.

Unfortunately, what should be the norm stands out as exceptional by today’s standards.

SOLD - This is no longer available.

UPDATED 8/26/07: After looking at comparative Land Cruisers for sale, I’ve lowered the price to $4K and also clarified that I’m willing to accept reasonable offers.

I’m selling my Land Cruiser. Email Chris @ chris@iamzed.com if interested.

Good interior and exterior condition, runs well and everything works. Needs some body work and new exhaust system to be perfect. Just changed the oil and charged the A/C but have to sell to get a new truck. $4,000 OBO.

- 170,500 miles (last 30,000 in the 5 years I’ve owned it)
- A/C
- Power windows and locks w/auto-down driver window
- Power steering
- Automatic Transmission w/Overdrive
- 4WD (rarely used but tested)
- New radiator
- 235/75R15 tires

Full photo set on Flickr

Repair history (as much as I have):

• 5/2002 - Front axle rebuilt
• 12/2002 - New front and rear shocks
• 2/2003 - Replace radiator side hose, water pump side hose, upper radiator hose, radiator cap. Adjust valve clearance and replace valve cover gasket.
• 3/2003 - Replace oil pan and gasket
• 6/2003 - Replace battery tray and starter
• 11/2003 - Replace alternator, power steering, and A/C belts. Change tranmission fluid. Flush coolant. Flush brakes. Four new tires.
• 11/2003 - Replace fuel tank pipe assembly
• 12/2003 - New alternator
• 6/2004 - New fuel cap
• 1/2007 - New radiator
• 8/2007 - New ignition coil

I had been reading some blog posts on some SEO blogs about Google being quicker to index new pages. Actually really quick: like two hours quick.

Well, it looks like they are quick to update existing pages too. When I updated my sidebar yesterday, I also changed my home page title. I just checked and the new title is in the Google results for [chris scott].

Technorati Tags: google

This probably matters to no one, but after my experience customizing the Copyblogger theme for Hail the Ale!, I updated this one to enable Sidebar Modules.

Now, I just need to update my blogroll with some links other than my own…