Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2009
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2009
I’m happy to announce that the gang of Mindanao Bloggers and their supporters will soon be commencing plans and arrangements for WordCamp Philippines 2009! I will be calling the first organizational meeting within the following week.
It has yet to be officially finalized, but I’m excited to let everyone know that we’re working with the Asian Institute of Management to have this prestigious school be the host and venue for WordCamp this year. Thanks to Jayvee Fernandez and Regnard Raquedan for the invaluable support!
Bueno, let’s get the ball rolling!
We are now calling for volunteers for the various committees (logistics, tech, food & refreshments, etc). If you would like to be a speaker at WordCamp, let me know! And if you have suggestions on topics to be presented / discussed at WordCamp, do leave a comment right here.
Further announcements shall be posted on WordCamp.ph, the official site, whose domain name is sponsored by dotPH. More generous sponsors — we welcome you! 
While the site is still being completed, we’re already working our behinds off to ensure another successful WordCamp!
Meanwhile, to my fellow Dabawenyos, we will soon be putting together more WordPress seminars (basic- and advanced-level sessions) before the summer is over within the next few weeks. Please refer to this blog for the schedules. And, yes, there will most probably be a Davao leg for WordCamp, just like last year.
Blog on!
Sponsored By: 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit - 27 Oct 2007, Davao City
Copyright © 2009, Oliver Robillo.
WordPress 2.7, which introduced major changes to the platform’s core, was released only recently, and now there’s another significant upgrade on the horizon: version 2.8. It’s still fresh in beta 1 status (Matt hasn’t even chosen a jazz musician to name it after yet).
Still, WP2.8 is already looking to be a very welcome upgrade. Number one on the list: automatic theme installations. I’m beta testing it now, and the built-in theme installer seems to be working just fine. Much like the automatic plugin installation functionality, the theme installer lets you search for themes (that exist in the WordPress.org directory) from within your dashboard, and get your chosen theme up & running in no time. The theme search facility is pretty accurate, too. You can search by keyword, tag, and/or author, either by manually entering the keywords or selecting predefined values.
There is also a way for you to upload and install theme .zip files that are already sitting in your hard drive. No need to go to your web host’s control panel file manager any longer. Whew! Now that’s what I call a content management system to beat!
More on WP as a serious CMS: themes templates and plugin codes are now presented to you in technicolor. OK kidding aside, editing theme templates are now easier on the eyes because of what Automattic calls CodePress syntax highlighting. It’s now easier to sift through templates’ codes, thanks to basic color differentiation of PHP, HTML and normal text. Nothing like what you might expect in industry-strength code editors, but it’s a start.
All in all, WP2.8 will be a major enhancement and a collection of bug fixes and security patches — all in the effort to make using WordPress much more user-friendly and yet powerful. Here’s a list of the new features we can expect from this upcoming upgrade. Can’t wait for the final release!
Copyright © 2009, Oliver Robillo.
Last 13 & 14 May 2009, Lyle Santos and I conducted a blogging seminar at the Coffee Club 101 in General Santos City, concentrating on WordPress and Google AdSense.
In attendance were GenSan’s bloggers, both seasoned and neophyte, all under the tutelage of Avel Manansala. It was a good group, coming from various age groups, interests and backgrounds.
I was able to introduce WordPress to the participants, and hopefully, allow them to appreciate the power and flexibility of this awesome blogging platform. Admittedly, at present very few bloggers in GenSan use WordPress. But after that first seminar, I am hoping that the numbers will increase. Especially that more and more bloggers there are getting into niche blogging and content specialization, I am counting on their looking to WordPress as their next publishing medium.
Lyle was “discovered” during the 2nd Mindanao Bloggers Summit last year in this city, when he was asked on the spot to give an impromptu presentation on Google AdSense. He is quite the speaker — very engaging and interesting. And so, I look forward to doing more blogging seminars in tandem with him in the near future.
I’d like to thank Avel for making the blogging seminar possible, as well as Coffee Club 101 for hosting the group for two days. This coffee shop is most certainly a blogger-friendly establishment — and serves quality coffee to boot!
Speaking of which, the bloggers of Cagayan de Oro are also conducting a similar event this week. Kudos to ChiQ Montes and her crew for this effort! Blog on!
I began revamping my blogs’ themes about two weeks ago, starting with my food blog, and finally came to a satisfying conclusion with IT talks!. All in all, I was able to completely change the designs of 5 personal blogs — that is to say, those blogs for which I personally write. It has been an exhilarating, although at times frustrating, experience!
The main reason why I switched themes was to keep up with WordPress technologies. Since version 2.7, new-fangled features have already been made available to WordPress bloggers (and those who use this awesome platform as a CMS). However, themes and plugins needed to be upgraded as well. Plugins are easy: when authors upgrade them, they’re readily available for deployment. Themes, on the other hand, need a bit more tweaking to make them WP2.7-ready.
So, since my blogs had already been sporting those old designs for long enough (except for Blogie Blog, but that’s beside the point), and because I was able to get my hands on a set of terrific WP themes from WooThemes.com, I decided to take the plunge.
I hope you like the new “look and feel” of my IT blog. 
Welcome to the new look and feel of my personal blog!!!
I’d gotten tired of the old one already, although it did serve me well. Truth is, when I chose that old theme, it was simply meant to be temporary while I hunted around for a more suitable one. But my other blogs got more attention from me then, and that’s why that old theme stuck with Blogie Blog for quite some time.
The new WordPress theme that you see now, called Angel, is from Jai Nischal Verma of Blog Oh! Blog. He has quite a number of awesome packages for your WP installation. My favorite blog, Ang Dabawenyo, uses one of their themes.
Speaking of this WP theme designer, Jai is running a “mega contest” for bloggers. He’s giving away 10 Super Premium WordPress Themes, worth a total of $700! All you have to do to join this blogging contest is subscribe to his RSS feed, and post an entry about the contest on your own blog (make sure to trackback to his contest post). Good luck!!
If you’re the type who wants more out of your whole WordPress experience, some of the themes Jai is offering in this contest are really worth having. I happen to have one of his premium themes, but I’m not using it yet… I’m saving it for a future blog project. 
So, how do you like my new blog design?
Ever since Matt started talking about the WordCamp Philippines 2008 T-shirt design, the buzz hasn’t quite died down yet, even months after the event. Today I got a trackback to the WCP site from WordCamp Ed D.C. (WordCamp Ed is an initiative that’s focused on promoting the educational uses of WordPress.)
The post is about their T-shirt design, which looks pretty cool actually. Then it says, “Who wins the t-shirt contest — us or WordCamp Philippines?” 
It’s flattering, really. Andrew and I and the rest of the WCP2008 organizers take it as a challenge, of course! But a friendly one. Personally, this makes me very proud of what we’ve accomplished in the world of WordCamps.
I know this post is rather late, but I don’t want to pass off blogging about this! 
The WordCamp Philippines official blog site was acclaimed the best website in the Events / Conferences category of this year’s DigitalFilipino Web Awards. Needless to say, I feel really proud of this award. It adds to the warm and fuzzy feeling I and my team already have for organizing a very successful WordCamp event.
Here’s the video of Winston Almendras, who accepted the award on our behalf, reading the acceptance speech I’d written for the occasion.
Find more videos like this on DigitalFilipino.com Social Network
Here’s the official list of DigitalFilipino Web Awardees:
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