The Deadbeats

The big day at last! Here’s a timeline of the events that transpired during Wordcamp Philippines 2008. Please do pardon the quality of the pictures as I don’t have a camera. (Yes, I suck)

6:30AM - Woke up early to prepare. Made sure that I’m prepared.

7:20AM - Took a jeep to the Baclaran LRT Station. Arrived at around 8:00AM, took a short walk to the station after getting off the jeep. Damn, the place is still so dirty and full of vendors even after all of these years. I don’t think this will change in my lifetime. Take note NOT to bring any bling while walking there. You might not walk out with anything afterwards.

8:10AM - Arrived at the venue, De La Salle University - College of St. Benilde. There was a short line when I arrived for registration, due to some minor issues at security. Got helped out by Blogie Robillo (one of the organizers). Had my first encounter with the organizing team, helpful bunch. One even escorted me when I asked  where the canteen is. (I didn’t eat breakfast, had to rush)

Read more after the jump!

8:30AM - Went up to the conference hall and got my camper ID. Looks nice! They even had scanners to scan the IDs upon entry for verification of entrance. System looks pretty nice!

What about the conference hall you ask? It’s alright.

9:00AM - Main event has not started yet. A few more minutes to go!

9:30AM - Decided to play some WoW, managed to log in but program has started. The Dean of IT Management for CSB made the opening speech for the event followed by an introduction to Wordcamp by Blogie Robillo. The main host was Migs Hipolito.

Shaked the hand of Matt Mullenweg. Saludos!

Off to the break-away sessions I go!

9:50AM - Took the “Creating WordPress Themes and CSS Power” session with Gail Villanueva. She’s having a hard time presenting the concepts due to some technical issues, mainly with the projector (it was too blurry). Learned a lot of concepts regarding the WordPress layout and themes. Maybe this will get me started on creating a decent layout for this site. Maybe.

10:50AM - The next course I took is “Building a Community Blog” by Blogie Robillo. The talk is mostly on how to create a community of bloggers with a central theme (ideas, blogs, location, etc) and how to promote it.

11:20AM - The last session I took is “Wordpress and SEO” with Hans Koch. The talk was mostly on how to promote blogs on major search engines to promote visibility. Rather interesting, might implement some on the site!

12:30PM - Had lunch, care of Chowking. Nothing fancy, just some Shanghai Lauriat and a cupcake. Spot had a contest asking what was the secret ingredient for their cupcakes. I answered L-O-V-E of course.

1:00PM - Finally, the Plenary Sessions! Matt Mullenweg gave the “State of the Word”, basically like a state of the nation address for WordPress. Lots of interesting facts.

His camera rocks.

3:00PM - Aileen Apolo at the mic with some information about Google Analytics. More SEO knowledge! FTW. Won a Google shirt by the way. Kapal lang ng mukha ang kailangan.

4:20PM - Last session! “Web Standards and WordPress” by Regnard Raquedan. Basically an overview of how web standards may make your life easier.

5:30PM - End of the big day, had a group picture with all of the Wordcampers.