Firewallender // Cassie Wallender

Hey, you’re invited! It’s free, it’s fun, it’s nerdy nirvana! Join us. I helped organize this year, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for an epic turnout so invite your friends. ;-)

BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. It is an international network of user generated non-traditional social conferences— open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. Oh and super fun!! REGISTER HERE (free!)

Follow @barcampseattle on Twitter and use #bcs09 in your tweets.

Sat Jun 13, 10am-5pm and Sun Jun 14 10am-1pm
(Also there’s a Friday night cocktail party at Office Nomads featuring Tara Hunt… in fact, here’s a more detailed breakdown of the schedule and parties)

Adobe Conference Center
801 North 34th Street
Seattle, WA 98103

SSW2 was, in a word: awesome.

Here’s a little video from Q13 Fox (I make an itsy bitsy appearance about halfway through), but I’d also recommend reading Anthony Steven’s reflections on the weekend (as usual, he does an excellent job!).

I’ll be posting details about my team’s project soon later, must recover a bit first. Soooo tired. And happy. :-) Seattle rocks.

And a little good, old fashioned slapstick… always a winner.  :-)

Who is the biggest advertising loser of the Super Bowl?  It appears to be GoDaddy, who started quite a stir on Twitter with their not only degrading but also blatantly stupid and absolutely uncreative ad campaign.  People are fleeing the domain hosting company like rats off a sinking ship.  This includes me.  I had one single domain left there which I plan on transfering to 1&1 today.  Not all publicity is good publicity, GoDaddy.

I bought and downloaded Pixelmator after a recommendation and short demo from my friend Andrew Woods. It’s a beautiful image editing program for Mac that at $59 is a superb replacement for Photoshop. And on top of their low price, I saved $10 by finding a coupon through RetailMeNot, a site I would always recommend everyone check before finishing a checkout on any purchase. The above was my first experiment playing around for a few minutes with Pixelmator and so far I’m very impressed. Anyone familiar with Photoshop will have no problem finding the tools intuitive and superior to Gimp in its elegance. (Though, I should mention that Gimp is free… so there’s that.  But you get what you pay for, as Valor always says.)

Oh yes, and… about the picture itself… :-) I love living in a country where one is free to photoshop the leader of the free world into ridiculous jokes. Life is good.

Mr. Watson, come here. I need you.

Step 1: Pick a domain and check if it’s free. Try to make it something easy to remember, that you don’t have to spell out to people.

Step 2: Buy a hosting package.  I use 1&1 to host, and so far, they’ve been swell.  All you’ll probably need is the beginners Linux hosting package, it comes with a domain, 10 MySQL databases, and 10 gigs of space.  It’s $3.99 a month (but there’s always specials to be had).  You can host elsewhere, just so long as you have a MySQL database and FTP access.

Step 3: Profit!  Just kidding.  Download the latest from WordPress.org.  There’s a bunch of steps here, but rather than just plagiarize, I’m just going to point you in this direction for the general directions, and to here for directions using 1&1 hosting.

Step 4: Time to customize!  You can find easy to install themes to make your blog look more “you”. I believe in crossposting, because not everyone is going to put your blog in their RSS Reader, or even use one.  Here’s a handy MySpace Crossposter and a Live Journal Cross Poster. I also import my blog’s feed into my Facebook.  You probably want to use something like Disqus or IntenseDebate to turn your comments into conversations (I use IntenseDebate and love it).  If you make pages such as the ever popular “resume” or “about me” pages, you may want to checkout this post on removing the comments section from the bottom of a post.  If you see any customization on my blog that you’re curious how I’ve done, let me know.

I’ll try to expand on this as I learn more myself, but for now this should definaely get you on the right track.  Happy blogging!

[Update: I'd recommend reading 10 Things to do after Installing WordPress after this post. It's got additional tips, especially regarding search engine optimization.]

Please don’t take this too seriously or personally - as you all know New Year’s Resolutions rarely involve much “resolve” and are more likely to be a general direction one would like to head in than any hard and fast rules.  That being said, I humbly present for your critique my brainstorm on potential 2009 microblogging resolutions:

1. I will not #unnecessarily #hashtag nearly every #other word.  Not even for #ironic effect.
2. I will not post vague and mysterious emo crud, nor vague and mysterious emo lyrics.
3. I will not post and mention someone just to namedrop. Really. I will search my heart first.
4. I will not attempt to make ten consecutive 140 character posts instead of one 1400 character blog post.
5. I will not post a link to every blog post I make, but rather sparingly link to the ones that are pertinent to a conversation at hand.  Twitter is not my RSS feed.
6. I will use direct messages whenever appropriate, and make “quality over quantity” my mantra for posting publicly.  No daily “Good morning/night, Twitterverse!” posts.
7. I will try to filter Twitter lingo from showing up in my Facebook status, so as to be kind to n00bs.
8. I will not take Quitter personally, everyone follows and unfollows people for different reasons.
9. I will make connections offline, and use microblogging as a tool for rather than a substitute for real life. I will use it as a tool to rally friends for impromptu face time.  :-)
10. I will not overshare or post while consuming alcohol… which generally results in oversharing.
11. I will not be bullied into adding anyone on LinkedIn just because we randomly follow each other, I will retain my LinkedIn network as a list of people that I know that I would recommend professionally.
12. I will strictly limit my forays into the following topics: every cute thing my cat/dog/baby/significant other does, every slightly notable quote by every speaker at every conference I’m at, every food or drink item I’ve consumed all day, every address I’ve arrived at, and every change in the local weather… even if it is SNOPOCOLYPSE 2009 because Seattle got 2mm of snow.
13. I will remember that just because I’m bored at the airport, doesn’t mean that I should inflict that boredom upon everyone else.
14. I will never post a lone URL without some other text to describe why you should follow the link, unless the link is quite self-explanatory.
15. And for all that is good and holy in the world, I will stop rickrolling people already.  Even if I am Wil fraking Wheaton.  It’s 2009 already after all… we need to let it go.

In a nutshell: noise < signal.

Any suggestions for additions to this list?

Anthony Stevens did a great job liveblogging the MindCamp experience.  If you’re confused about what being at an “unconference” is like, I’d highly recommend giving it a read through for the play by play.  This was my first unconference myself, and I had no clue what to expect.  I suspected awesomeness.  I was totally right.  This is what I’ve gathered: true to the bar-camp, foo-camp, word-camp, Word-Ignite-Bar-Camp-Camp-Camp-Camp-Palooza-PDX (no, really) format, all unconferences hold to the idea that a conference would probably be just as useful if the speakers were randomly selected from the group going to the conference.  It’s an intriguing model: get space, get food, get interesting people together, and see what happens.  These are motivated folk.  A lot happens.

MindCamp is a 24 hour event (no sleep for the elite), and a good chunk of that is scheduled out by the participants suggesting session ideas and then everyone voting on which sessions we wanted.  Every hour, a new 45 minute session would start, and there were generally about six to choose from.  The schedule looked like this:

It was difficult to choose, to say the least.  I usually had about two or three I wanted to hit.  I only skipped one hour of sessions to take a break and upload photos.  Many of the sessions I did go to can only be described as fascinating brain candy, a few memorable ones were “How to be a Flickr Ninja” (lead by Stewtopia, who took the photo below), “Nerdcraft” (lead by Beth Goza), “Human Tribes and Social Media” (by the Brian Dorsey), “Portals: Making your Life an Adventure Game” (lead by Leif Hanson), a group brainstorming session on “Location Based Services” and “Political Activism and Social Media” (lead by Kathy Gill).

I also went to a session lead by Mónica Guzmán and Jason Preston in which we decided to make a “Viral Video”.  Now, I realize one cannot create a viral video, you create a video and it either goes viral or not, but we tried to make a video that had aspects which might make it popular: short, funny, something people could identify with, etc.  I wish we could have made the sound a little better in parts, but Jason did an amazing job with editing what we had.  We brainstormed the ideas and shot all the scenes in about 45 minutes, so I’m pretty happy with what came out of it:

It was a really fun and informative use of 24 hours, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone with a geeky streak. I met a lot of kindred spirits, and got to spend some time with good friends as well. A big thank you to Synapse who hosted us in their amazing office space in downtown Seattle, and Andru Edwards for organizing.

My Washington Mutual debit/credit card just expired at the end of August, so today I found myself using a different bank’s card. Why didn’t I just activate the new one they sent me? Without asking me, they had sent me one with RFID, which allows you to pay without even touching the sensor. Maybe it’s secure, but why risk it? There’s enough out there to lead me to believe it isn’t secure, and why should I believe the credit card companies? Of course they’d love to make our spending easier, with RFID we won’t even have to look at the total, and American debt can continue to increase at an even more ridiculous and undisciplined rate.

But spending concerns aside, there’s still security. Apparently, it must be pretty darn hackable, because Adam Savage of Mythbusters wanted to test it and the Discovery Channel quickly got bullied by a bunch of credit card company lawyers to basically stay the heck away from the topic completely “or else”.

Now, this irritates me even more. Security by obscurity is not a valid method in the information age. Notice that everyone and their mother has heard of lock bumping now? The best way to fix a security hole isn’t to hide it. BoingBoing already has showed you can make a RFID reader (and cheaply).

Tomorrow I’m going to my bank and telling them where they can put their RFID tags, and it isn’t on my credit cards. Someday, I might just have to be the nutcase with tin foil around their wallet and passport, but as long as it’s an option I’ll take the ten extra seconds it takes to sign my receipts in exchange for knowing my data stays in my pocket with my cards.

Maybe I sound paranoid, but this is coming from someone who’s been a victim of identity theft twice. I was beginning to feel like Sandra Bullock in The Net. There’s no way I’m going to make things any easier on these guys.

UPDATE (9/3/08): Adam has retracted his statements… sort of.

“There’s been a lot of talk about this RFID thing, and I have to admit that I got some of my facts wrong, as I wasn’t on that story, and as I said on the video, I wasn’t actually in on the call,” Savage said in the statement. “Texas Instruments’ account of their call with Grant and our producer is factually correct. If I went into the detail of exactly why this story didn’t get filmed, it’s so bizarre and convoluted that no one would believe me, but suffice to say…the decision not to continue on with the RFID story was made by our production company, Beyond Productions, and had nothing to do with Discovery, or their ad sales department.”

Sounds like someone gets to keep his title as “dude with the best job in the world”.

According to the PAX forums, there’s probably at least 250 “New Arcadians” jumping on the Twitter train in anticipation of North America’s largest open gaming convention, the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), taking place here in Seattle this weekend. I’ve noticed a bit of confusion, so I thought I’d post a few tips for attendees who are new to Twitter:

MASTER THE BASICS, YOUNG PADAWAN

Set your phone up on Twitter before you leave for PAX, and If you’re using Twitter by phone (SMS, specifically) learn the SMS commands. To post a tweet, just text it to 40404. Using me as an example, to be my Twitter friend you’d “tweet” follow firewallender. To publicly mention me in a message or reply to me, you’d say, @firewallender Nice post! To send me a private message, you’d say d firewallender Party’s at the Hyatt at 11! If you’re using text messaging (SMS), this would all be to 40404. Keep in mind the limitations of your text messaging plan, because otherwise, this might hurt a bit.

TRACK LIKE A BOUNTY HUNTER

You don’t need to add everyone who posted in the PAX forum as a friend, just track the term “PAX” and add people you find interesting along the way.

Tracking via SMS

This may or may not work, Twitter likes to turn this feature off. Text track PAX to 40404 to get everyone’s tweets (messages) that mention PAX. Use untrack PAX to turn it back off, so you can eventually sleep again. You probably want to track your own username as well, so you’ll always get replies, i.e., @firewallender Boba Fett? Where?

Tracking via a laptop/from the BYOC LAN party

If you’re using a laptop at PAX, use a program like TweetDeck to track like crazy. You can track multiple terms (but of course, you’ll want to track “PAX”) and you get a separate column for your friends’ tweets, replies to you, and each term you’re tracking. It’s rad.

An example screenshot of my TweetDeck tracking Gnomedex and PAX:

Tracking via the Web (mobile or otherwise) or the iPhone

You can always hit up http://search.twitter.com/search?q=PAX from your mobile browser or your laptop to see what’s up.

If you’re one of the poor saps using an iPhone, I recommend installing an application called Twinkle (you can find it in the iTunes App Store for free). If you post using Twinkle, it knows your location, and allows you to see all other Twinkle posts within a mile (or further, you can set your desired radius). You can also use it to post pictures.

NAMEDROP, YO

Notice that tracking “PAX” only works if “PAX” is in the tweet, so if you want your tweet to get seen, mention “PAX”! You’ll sometimes see #PAX. You can toss the “#” in to turn any term into a “hashtag”. PAX hashtags (#PAX) will show up in anything tracking “PAX”, but additionally they show up at http://hashtags.org/tag/PAX/ IF and only IF your Twitter account already follows @hashtags. Mostly, Hashtags are just messy (sorry, Hashtag guys!).  I wouldn’t worry about them if you can use the other methods mentioned to just track the word.

Alright, kids, that’s all I’ve got for now!  If you have any questions, please leave a comment and include your Twitter username. Welcome to Twitter and please say hi if you see me at PAX!  If you’re grateful for this post, please tweet about it to spread the word (and/or invite me to epic PAX parties).

(CW) out.