Partner Otaku

Yesterday was a big day for Automattic and Microsoft folks. Matt Mullenweg demonstrated WordPress hosted on Azure during Ray Ozzie’s keynote. I was pleasantly surprised to see support for MySQL.  Very cool imho. This will give Wordpress users/hosters access to Azure. I think Matt stated that he saw “Pigs” out of his office windows .  Additionally, icanhazcheezburger (lolcats, failblog etc.), the largest WordPress site, announced that their new property “Oddly Specific” is now hosted on Azure.

Right from PDC here’s some news – icanhazcheezburger now hosts a new site called “Oddly Specific” hosted on Azure!

In partnership with Marco Tabini and Associates (MTA) (php|architect; CodeWorks; php|tek), we are excited to announce the launch of The Great PHP on Windows contest. Do you have what it takes to win? Of course you do .

You are encouraged to leverage existing open-source libraries and applications, including blogs engines, forums, photo galleries and other platform/components as part of your submission.

For complete details visit http://phparch.com/win

The Quick Summary:

• Write a new application designed to run in PHP on Windows using IIS—or make a significant contribution to an existing open-source project along the same lines
• The best application, selected jointly by a panel of experts and by our readers, will win a grand prize
  which includes a 52″ Digital HD home entertainment system, as well as an all-expenses paid trip to php|tek 2010 in Chicago. Runner-up prizes include 2 XBox 360 Ultimate and subscriptions to php|architect.
• Not familiar with Windows? No worries—we have partnered with Applied Innovations to give you absolutely free hosting on a pre-configured virtual machine for the duration of the contest.
• Registration and submissions for the contest will be accepted October 19^th, 2009 through February 28^th, 2010 and with judging and public voting will occur March 1^st – 31^st.
• For the duration of the contest, Applied Innovations will provide free web hosting to all participants (shared) and a free VM to the first 60 participants who register.
• Contest is open to all U.S. residents excluding MTA, Applied Innovations, and Microsoft employees and affiliated individuals. (MTA is the official sponsor with AppliedI and Microsoft as promotion entities.)

The contest is open to residents of the United States only—but you can still win by voting, no matter where you are.

 Good Luck!

It was a great weekend spent at WordCamPDX in Portland’s a great town.  

I like Portland more than Seattle.  It’s got a very cool food cart culture…Jason Mauer the local Microsoft Developer Evangelist introduced me to Wiffies Fried Pies. Wiffies offers a wide range of pies, from BBQ Brisket to Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip. I had some really good Belgian Fries too.  I certainly had my fried food quota for the month!

Matt Mullenweg during the Q&A session

Picture of the group at the beginning of Saturday’s sessions

Jason Mauer’s Talk Like A Pirate – Windows Live Writer Demo

Wiffie’s BBQ Brisket…

Belgian Fries!

I just arrived at the Webtrends office in Portland.  It’s my first WordPress Camp and I’m really impressed with the enthusiasm of the community. I’m looking forward to the day. Check out the agenda

SCHEDULE:

Saturday, September 19

• 8:15 – Doors open / Registration
• 9:00 – Welcome/opening/intro to unconference
• 9:30 – Micah Baldwin – Do Your Readers Trust You? Building Influence The Right Way
• 10:30 – Cami Kaos / Dr. Normal – Bondage: How to be your podcast’s Dom, not its Sub
• 11:30 – Lunch
• 12:45 – Matt Mullenweg – WordPress Q&A
• 13:45 – Jason Grigsby – Speed Up WordPress. Make Readers Happy and Your Site Green
• 14:30 – Break
• 15:00 – Duane Storey – BraveNewBlog – Embracing the mobile frontier
• 16:00 – Tyler Sticka – WordPress-Powered Portfolios
• 16:45 – Closing Comments

Sunday, September 20

• 9:00 – Welcome/networking
• 9:30 – Lorelle VanFossen – Tags and Categories: Are You Uncategorized?
• 10:30 – John Hawkins – Building a Plugin – It’s Easier Than You Think
• 11:30 – Lunch
• 12:45 – Scott Porad – LOLs, FAILs and Life at the Cheezburger Factory
• 13:45 – Will Norris – How NOT to build a WordPress Plugin
• 14:30 – Break
• 15:00 – Garron Selliken – Geotagging and Mapping WordPress Content
• 16:00 – Scott Hendison, Amber Case, Dawn Foster, Rick Turoczy, and Nate DiNiro – SEO Smackdown Panel
• 16:45 – Closing Comments