The first annual gathering of WordPress users and programmers took place Saturday, 12/5. WordCamp Orlando was held in 2 buildings on the beautiful Rollins College campus in Winter Haven. There was free WiFi but AC Power was a little difficult to come by, so more than once I had to seek out space on crowded wall outlets. Everyone agreed the $15 conference fee was well worth the information and presentations shared (plus it included a t-shirt and a good BBQ lunch), There were roughly 72-100 people attending, a list of people who had specified Twitter accounts can be viewed here.

This event was unique among WordCamps in that for the first time, all 4 WordPress developers were together in attendance and available for Q&A (could being near Disney World have had something to do with that?). It was also the first time I personally have seen GoogleWave used as a main communications means for the people attending. The photo stream for the WordCamp is on Flickr, and the Twitter hashtag was #wco. [...]

Before (or Pre) this year’s Computer Electronic Show, I was not thinking about Palm. My current Palm Centro is slow, too small, and all of the apps are really old. I had decided on waiting for a Google Android phone for the Sprint network.

Then CES happened… The new Pre looks like a character from Wall-e. Applications can be developed using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS (well that’s a great tool box – seriously – think gmail). The keyboard appears to be more accommodating and the foundation of this eggy looking device is Linux. Finally applications can be managed like a deck of cards and they maintain their state as you move from app to app. [...]

Remember the pirate port-town called Tortuga in Pirates of the Caribbean? Tortuga was out of the jurisdictions of the Royal Navy and the East India Trading Company. The place really lacked order. In Tortuga, pirates got slapped and first-mates where found in less than desirable places. Many IT professionals may think of images similar to Tortuga when they hear the phrase, “open source.” However, the results reveal that open source is not a disorderly software collaboration, so the images of Tortuga don’t apply.

Now think back again with me to Port Royal. Port Royal was the heavily-guarded British Caribbean stronghold. Most of the time, order was maintained, and only a few major problems occurred such as when Lady Elizabeth was abducted by pirates. [...]

We’ve all heard the significance of dynamic and hot-from-the-oven content to keep our web-sites relevant. With the advent of Web 2.0, web-sites once again impress us with easier to use and more responsive user experiences. These new enhancements are not powered by new technology, but rather by a new way of using old technology. This everything old is new again approach is called Ajax.

Technically speaking Ajax is an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. JavaScript and XML are the building blocks of Ajax solutions and both have been around for years. Interestingly, the XML portion in practice runs in the background and is facilitated by standard HTTP requests. [...]